Tuesday, March 23 2010
Blank Generation
A bad film is enlivened by its location shooting and several music performances by Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
Monday, March 22 2010
Breaking Bad: The Complete Second Season
In short order, Breaking Bad not only surpassed Mad Men in quality and storytelling; it is, without question, the best show on television.
Red Cliff
Famed action director John Woo delivers with his highly anticipated portrayal of one of the most famous battles in Chinese history.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
This feminist character study – in which we peel back the accumulated layers of silencing male coercive authority that have gathered like a veil around the 'secret' life, or lives, within – could have been thrilling.
Friday, March 19 2010
Hunger
Featuring a powerful performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is a meditative symphony of human struggle and resilience.
The Four Minute Mile
This unnecessarily lengthy 1988 made for British TV movie nearly makes an anticlimax out of one of the seminal sporting moments of the 20th century.
Thursday, March 18 2010
Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Precious is neither a rags to riches story nor is it a relentlessly bleak portrait of a miserable life. Thanks to Gabourey Sidibe, Precious herself is as funny and charming as she is angry and depressed.
Eleven Minutes
McCarroll’s exuberant personality is at the heart of his popularity and the documentary's appeal.
Alice
We get a lot of characterization in a short time, including Alice’s abandonment issues and the tough-as-nails karate persona she uses to battle bad guys throughout the film.
Wednesday, March 17 2010
James Dean, Race With Destiny
Dean is depicted as a man without a past or a future, and the people who loved him are conveniently forgotten.
Swedish Auto
Like a boxy family car from Scandinavia, Swedish Auto puts safety and predictability over style and performance.
Tuesday, March 16 2010
Night Court: The Complete Third Season
There were 193 episodes taped during Night Court's run from 1984 to 1992; the third season is when the show began to hit its stride and is arguably the best.
Alexander the Last
Swanberg continues to explore the perils to young love that lurk around every corner.
Monday, March 15 2010
The Stoning of Soraya M.
If The Passion of the Christ re-ignited your passion for religion, The Stoning of Soraya M. will elicit your compassion for the victims of those who twist religion for less noble purposes.
Matt Houston: The First Season
As a general rule, my friends don’t get wrapped up in many murder investigations. Fortunately for us, Matt Houston, millionaire business mogul and private investigator, doesn’t have that problem.
No Sweat
This lively documentary about two L.A. garment factories that employ radically different management strategies pits a hippy-entrepreneur-turned-venture-capitalist against a mercurial and at times abusive impresario.
Friday, March 12 2010
Up in the Air
Ryan Bingham spends over 300 days a year away from home, and loves it. Then two women come into his life and between the two of them, he questions his empty-backpack existence.
The Damned United
Sheen has portrayed real life British figures who achieved popularity and notoriety in the respective industries of politics, broadcasting and sports. This is his best performance yet.
Thursday, March 11 2010
Alice in Wonderland
The fractured story-telling, its defiance of convention, and absorbing photography bring to fresh relief Lewis Carroll’s otherworldly social criticism of the absurd life of bourgeois England.
Have Gun - Will Travel: Season Four, Volume One
Violent action, character study, and humor were framed around a weather-beaten, rueful, gentlemanly yet occasionally savage bounty hunter called Paladin.
