Wednesday, April 18 2012
‘Neverland’ Is a Deft Blending of Sorcery, Spectacle, and Emotional Struggles
Peter shares the unconscious longing of all children to discover uncomfortable truths, yet simultaneously retains a carefree manner.
Tuesday, April 17 2012
‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’ Is One of the Best Action Films of 2011
From the high-flying prologue with Agent Hanaway (Josh Hollaway) to the final showdown in Mumbai, this story moves at a breakneck speed.
An Offbeat Gem About a Month to Remember: ‘Octubre’
This is a disarmingly affecting and original story about learning to appreciate the minor miracles of everyday life.
Feminist Exploitation Films: ‘Roger Corman’s Cult Classics: The Nurses Collection
The politics couldn’t be more obvious and you can almost hear someone crunching numbers on an archaic adding machine with each passing scene, making sure that nothing goes a penny over budget. Still, entertainment, such as it is, does happen.
Monday, April 16 2012
‘Torchwood: Miracle Day’: Wherein Life without Death Becomes Unbearable
The Torchwood crew is back with a bigger budget and even more star-power -- it's just a shame that budget's not applied towards a story that's worthwhile.
Base and Brutal with a Unique Visual Style: Xavier Gens’ ‘The Divide’
Xavier Gens delivers a post-apocalyptic tale of nine survivors forced together in a cramped bunker. With the world in ruins around them, supplies running low, it's only a matter of time before they reach their breaking points.
Friday, April 13 2012
Talking in Circles: ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’
Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel about a boy who goes searching for clues after his father’s death on 9/11 is yet another failed attempt to translate this author to the screen.
A Legendary Performance In an Underrated Masterpiece: ‘Bellissima’
Anna Magnani is astonishing in Visconti's masterful look at the cruel realities of the filmmaking industry.
Thursday, April 12 2012
‘Masterpiece Classic: Great Expectations’ Feels Both Dickensian and Modern
This adaptation takes some liberties with the original story, but it does an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere and overall feeling of the book.
That Great Intriguing Mulatto: ‘Brazil: An Inconvenient History’
Yes, Brazil has lovely beaches, an incomparably rich musical heritage, and an attractive populace. It also has a particularly shameful past as the foundation of the most extensive forced migration in human history.
Wednesday, April 11 2012
‘Kate & Leopold - The Director’s Cut’: Alas, Time Is Not on Their Side
Now, women don’t have to settle for love or a career. They can have both, and the best of today’s rom-coms demonstrate this. Trouble is, this isn't the best of today's rom-coms.
Graceful Grief: ‘Nicole Kidman 4-Film Collection’
If, after taking in Cold Mountain, you’re not yet sick of watching Kidman wield enormous shotguns, she does this plenty more in The Others, where she plays -- you’ll never guess -- a woman trying to hold a household together as she awaits a lover who may or may not be returning from war.
Tuesday, April 10 2012
‘Melancholia’: The Stasis of Despair and the Allure of Rapture
Lars von Trier's stunning, occasionally beautiful, slow-motion apocalypse, Melancholia, reaches for a moment of cathartic ecstasy amongst the crippling stasis of despair.
‘Romantics Anonymous’ Is a Light Confection of a Film
There is far more sweetness than bitterness in this new film by Jean-Pierre Améris — in chocolatier terms, it’s maybe ten percent cocoa solids.
Monday, April 9 2012
A Wonderful Show of Magic: ‘Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey’
A genuinely uplifting and sweet film worth watching and re-watching.
The Man Behind That Muppet: ‘Being Elmo’
You’ve probably never wanted to cry when you saw Elmo hug someone before, but you will before the movie’s over.
Friday, April 6 2012
‘Chinatown’ Begins as an Archetypal Private Detective Story; It Ends as a Definitive One
Along with Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Chinatown was part of a mini-reinvention of the private eye subgenre, filtering '40s film-noir classicism through the cynicism and complexity of '70s auteur cinema.
Thursday, April 5 2012
Charlize Theron’s Controlled, Razor-Fanged Performance in ‘Young Adult’
Young Adult is as cynical and sad about the idea of nostalgia for teenage years as Juno was sweetly nostalgic about the ways that you can define yourself at that age.
‘Urbanized’: Hopeful Developments and Sobering Statistics
This is total immersion filmmaking, a crash course in all the elements of city life that concern planners, architects, politicians and activists: housing, transportation, growth, crime and sanitation.
Sadly, This Slow-Paced Slice of Life Never Overcomes Its Inertia: ‘My Tehran for Sale’
Trying to widen the distribution of foreign films is a worthy objective, but the movies themselves must merit the attention. In this case, Iran's fine cinematic history gets just a little less interesting.
