Film Articles: January 2008

As detailed in the engaging documentary Orthodox Stance, Dmitriy Salita brings together belief systems that appear to be opposite, being a professional boxer and an Orthodox Jew.

Even as interviewees disagree over how the shoot down happened, the documentary draws broader conclusions from the ongoing debates and refusals to take responsibility.

Based on Ron Leshem's novel and directed by Joseph Cedar, Beaufort is an elegant, thoughtful war movie.

That Rambo is by now too old to recover or start again only underlines the film's ultimate point: no one wins this time.

Even if you take the film's moral lesson at face value, the overkill is discouraging, and not very instructive.

The plot, as much as it embraces melodramatic clichés and the sort of "let's put on a show" steps familiar in musicals from Fred Astaire to Andy Hardy, is buoyed by How She Move's energetic dance numbers.

The parody of Teeth isn't subtle, though it is, for a few moments, cute.

The opening images of The Band's Visit hint at possibilities, the rewards that may be reaped from embracing the unexpected.

The focus on delusional heroism may be Cloverfield's most salient trick.

Mad Money borrows liberally and carelessly from Set It Off, still a smart, angry film about class divisions that have only grown wider since 1996.

The first few minutes of Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream are not bad.

Sweet and nurturing and passive-aggressive, Jane (Katherine Heigl) is yet another movie girl in need of rescue.

The villain in The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie has a mechanical arm.

Of all the players, Katt Williams appears to comprehend the unpleasantness of the entire exercise.

"You can’t just create a story for kids and promote slacker-ism. So I had to reshape their characters entirely and come up with a motive for them. What did they really want? They want to be heroes, but they have no idea how."

As peculiar and fascinating as its subject, Terror's Advocate doesn't presume to tell truth, though it pursues its many forms with a remarkable integrity.

The four stories are unquestionably compelling, tales of extreme circumstances and results, about boys who become men with special skills and inclinations, shaped by hardship and fear.

Following the trails blazed by Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, King Corn features two amiable guides in search of answers.

Simultaneously elegant and harrowing, shot in grainy black and white, the film's gorgeous visual compositions are contrasted with some brutal subject matter.

Land, oil, blood. There will be lots of all in Paul Thomas Anderson's stunning new movie.

What is Ed Burns up to?

Personal and political history is delivered with a sharp mix of comedy and tragedy (Marjane lies in bed, the "camera" hovering overhead as she declares herself a communist after learning her grandfather was jailed for same).

In The Killing of John Lennon, Mark David Chapman is neither singular nor deviant. Rather, he is a logical product of his moment.