Features
Wednesday, January 14 2009
Tough and Tender - The Top 20 Female Performances of 2008
Twenty talented ladies, 20 performances worthy of multiple little gold men. Unfortunately, as in all years, someone has to come out on top. But after looking over this impressive list, picking the preeminent turn of 2008 seems almost impossible.
Columns
Sunday, March 1 2009
Woolf at the Door
Both Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours offer an illuminating look at the choices we make, the roles we play, and the hours that hinge our lives together.
Thursday, December 11 2008
Shameful Exposure
A fiery Kate Winslet saves morality tale in 'The Reader' while a similarly powerful Meryl Streep can't do the same for the overly certain 'Doubt'.
Monday, December 8 2008
The Annihilating Feminine: Kate Winslet Gets Nasty in The Reader
In Winslet’s clever, low-key performance, all of the character’s ambiguousness remains intact, making Hanna her most complicated, mature creation to date.
Reviews
Friday, December 23 2011
'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' Explains Too Much
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close makes a mighty effort to make the strange familiar and the familiar newly illuminating as well.
Wednesday, December 10 2008
The Reader
Most obviously, Hannah is unfathomable, the feminine object Michael must figure out and overcome in order to "become a man."
Monday, July 14 2003
The Hours (2002)
'What I learned seeing the movie is that yes, you do lose that ability to go into people's minds, but you gain Meryl Streep's ability to separate an egg, in a way that tells you everything you need to know about who that person is at that point.'"
Thursday, January 16 2003
The Hours (2002)
The women are also functions of a coherent narrative, made comprehensible as embodiments of historical patterns.
Sunday, January 1 1995
Billy Elliot (2000)
Behind a triumphant tale of self-discovery is a subtext of anxiety that ultimately enhances what might have been a pretty ordinary film.
Blogs
Thursday, December 11 2008
Unclear Motives Make this 'Reader' Unrewarding
When you turn a book into a movie, context is usually the first creative facet to be sacrificed. Film is so obsessed with movement and…
Tuesday, December 9 2008
Holo-Cost
All across the web this past week, it's been the subject of much metaphysical ink. As awards season slowly winds down, Hollywood is dragging out…
News
Friday, January 27 2012
Oscars 2012: Five directors, five approaches
LOS ANGELES — They have worked in diverse disciplines — acting, screenwriting, theater, television, exploitation films — were born in three countries and have made…
Monday, April 13 2009
‘The Reader' is more nuanced than its detractors give it credit for being
Reviewing "The Reader" in The New Yorker last December, Anthony Lane described the film as "pernicious" and "a low-grade musing on atrocity, garnished with erotic…
Thursday, February 12 2009
How Kate Winslet outdid herself to garner an Oscar nomination
Kate Winslet always was going to land a best actress Oscar nomination this year. That was understood. Otherwise, Vanity Fair wouldn't have put her on…
Friday, January 23 2009
Oscars ignore ‘The Dark Knight,' except for Ledger nomination
It was a dark day for "The Dark Knight" as the 81st annual Oscar nominations, announced Thursday, snubbed the most popular film since "Titanic." Christopher…
