Features
Monday, January 23 2012
The 40 Best Films of 2011
2011 was a year of good, not necessarily great, films, though the amazing choices by our staff might argue against such a overall cinematic classification.
Thursday, September 8 2011
The Contagious Age: Overwhelmed by Vampires, Viruses, and Zombies in the 21st Century
Contagion is the dominant horror of the 21st century, an era marked by epidemics of terror, war, and economic crisis.
Thursday, February 17 2011
Solarian Absurdity
In his classic SF novel Solaris, Stanislaw Lem composes an ode to the absurdity of the human struggle for knowledge. No better is this struggle encapsulated than in the infinite expanse of space and in the discovery of new worlds.
Monday, January 31 2011
Missed Movies of 2010, Part 1: 3 Idiots to Lebanon
In part one of our missed movies special feature, the staff looks at a wide variety of titles, from a creepy urban legend, a look at vampires, South African style, and the latest from greats like Mike Leigh and Robert Duvall, to documentaries of such famous (or perhaps, infamous) faces as Joan Rivers and Spalding Gray.
Friday, January 8 2010
The Best 30 Films of 2009
In one of the rarest rating periods ever, several on the staff could successfully argue for any of the Top 30 choices as a potential number one. While not all classics, they remain the consistent cream of 2009's crop.
Columns
Thursday, January 8 2009
Guerrilla Patton
Soderbergh's supersized retelling of the Che Guevara legend is an uncomfortable mix of war procedural and unabashed hero worship; ingenious but flawed.
Reviews
Friday, January 20 2012
Steven Soderbergh's 'Haywire' Showcases MMA Star Gina Carano
In frames that are both rough and precise, in skewed angles on clandestine meetings or long tracking shots of Mal in motion, you're invited to think of the world like she does.
Friday, September 9 2011
Steven Soderbergh Explores Panic with 'Contagion'
But even as social and moral orders collapse, Contagion keeps focused on carnal effects.
Wednesday, December 15 2010
And Everything is Going Fine
Spalding Gray creates these many tones -- melancholy, funny, provocative -- in the many clips of his performances in And Everything is Going Fine.
Thursday, March 4 2010
The Informant!
Whitacre's work with the FBI eventually reveals unstable psychology beneath his earnest goofiness; the movie feels controlled yet scrambled because Whitacre does, too.
Friday, February 12 2010
Che: Part One and Two
'Che' draws together the contadictory tendencies of the revolution with those of an ambitious filmmaker who has visions of a better cinema while still firmly mired in a commercial system.
Blogs
Friday, September 9 2011
'Contagion' Cruises When It Should Crackle
Contagion becomes a battle between what it is and what it could have been. It satisfies just enough to warrant its existence while frustrating one with its potential.
Friday, December 17 2010
The Talking Cure?: 'And Everything Is Going Fine'
And Everything is Going Fine may be an incomplete portrait, but it is a thoroughly arresting one for sure.
Friday, May 15 2009
Soderbergh Delivers an Intriguing 'Experience'
Shot on digital and budgeted at a mere $1.7 million, this calm character study stands in direct contrast with his last film -- the big, bombastic, and epic biopic Che!
News
Wednesday, September 7 2011
Jude Law relished his prickly part in ‘Contagion’
PHILADELPHIA — In “Contagion,” the fast, frightening global pandemic drama opening Friday, Jude Law is a mad blogger, a Web journo whose raging posts against…
Thursday, May 28 2009
Steven Soderbergh refuses to play it safe
For his 20th feature film, "The Girlfriend Experience," director Steven Soderbergh has returned to a theme he explored in his breakthrough "sex, lies and videotape":…
Thursday, February 26 2009
‘Che' director Steven Soderbergh's revolutionary filmmaking
It's a face recognized even by those who know nothing about the man behind it. He peers at us fromT-shirts and posters and magazines, a…
Thursday, January 22 2009
Behind the scenes of ‘Che' with Steven Soderbergh
"I can't sit here and tell you I think movies make any difference at all," director Steven Soderbergh says, halfway through a bowl of soup…
Thursday, January 15 2009
Fast chat with ‘Che' star Benicio Del Toro
You've seen the T-shirts. Everywhere. With that face - the beard, beret, eyes burning with revolution. Yet, few people know much about the man behind…
