Two New Stories With A New-Wave Vibe
Lately I've been re-watching vintage Truffaut movies, and I've been struck by the resurgent influence on American independent films of the French New Wave of the late '50s and '60s.The Truffaut...
View ArticleRediscover Your Inner Anarchist In The Anti-Corporate 'East'
The second collaboration between writer-director Zal Batmanglij and actress and co-writer Brit Marling is called The East, which happens to be the name of the movie's anti-corporate terrorist cult....
View ArticleWhedon's Touch Finds A Match With 'Much Ado'
One word sums up my reaction to Joss Whedon's film of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing: Huzzah!Here is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer— and the director of The Avengers— working with...
View ArticleTwo Master Moviemakers, Two Singularly Fine Films
The decade of the 1980s — when major corporations made their presence more felt in Hollywood — was for all kinds of reasons a low point in American moviegoing.
View Article'The Lone Ranger': Summer Fun With Manifest Destiny
We're at the point when Johnny Depp's dumbest whims can lead to movies costing $200 million. I imagine Depp lying in a hammock on his private island and saying, "I've always wanted to play Barnabas...
View ArticleIntroducing Oscar Grant, The Man Behind The Headlines
The actor Michael B. Jordan gives a major performance in Ryan Coogler's debut film, Fruitvale Station. He plays 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot in a run-in with cops at an Oakland, Calif., train...
View ArticleTwo Documentaries Examine Violence, Human And Animal
Two documentaries, Blackfish and The Act of Killing, are making waves around the world.
View Article'Blue' Rhapsodies: Woody Allen, In Need Of New Tricks
Another year, another Woody Allen picture, and few agree on whether that's a good thing. For some, he hasn't made an interesting film since Husbands and Wives, maybe even Hannah and Her Sisters. Others...
View ArticleA Good Girl And A Lost Boy, Looking For A Way Forward
The teen romance The Spectacular Now is by turns goofy, exhilarating, and unreasonably sad — just like being a teenager.It centers on a fast-talking, hard-drinking high school party animal named Sutter...
View ArticleA Future Where Class Warfare Is Much More Than A Metaphor
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View ArticleBoozy Bromance 'World's End' Rises Above Its Lowbrow Tactics
The World's End is a world-shaking, genre-bending, sci-fi comedy, and a splendid capper to what British writer-director Edgar Wright and actor-writer Simon Pegg call their "Cornetto trilogy," for an...
View ArticleReaching Across What's Broken, 'Short Term' Fix Or No
It's easy to make fun of a certain kind of therapeutic language — the kind you hear all through the movie Short Term 12.That title comes from the name of a group home for abused and/or unstable teens....
View ArticleGandolfini Is So Vivid In 'Enough Said,' You Forget He's Gone
Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said is her most conventional comedy since her 1996 debut, Walking and Talking. I don't love it as much as her scattershot ensemble movies Friends With Money and Please Give,...
View ArticleGordon-Levitt's 'Don Jon' Is An Openhearted Directorial Debut
In phe last decade, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has worked hard to establish himself as a serious actor, and he's been so successful it's easy to forget he came of age in the '90s sitcom 3rd Rock from the...
View ArticleHouston, We Have A Space Flick: A Sentimental Mission In Zero 'Gravity'
In a season in which we're all talking about AMC's phenomenal Breaking Bad and Netflix's elating Orange Is the New Black, Hollywood needs you, your kids and everyone in Europe and China to get out from...
View ArticleA Pirate Saga More Sobering Than Swashbuckling
Most kidnapping melodramas have final scenes — after their climaxes — that are, effectively, throwaways. There are sighs of relief, tearful reunions with families, cameras that dolly back on domestic...
View ArticleAt Home At Sea: Robert Redford, At His Best Alone
As I watched Robert Redford acting all by himself in the superlative survival-at-sea movie All Is Lost, I suddenly realized why the setup feels so perfect: Redford is most in his element when he's...
View ArticleIn Emotionally Charged 'Blue,' Sex Is Graphic, But Not Gratuitous
Blue Is the Warmest Color is a lesbian coming-of-age movie, and its long and graphic sex scenes have already generated controversy. The director, Abdellatif Kechiche, is a man, and at least one...
View ArticleAcross 'Nebraska,' On A Journey That Goes Beyond The Trip
Last month, I saw the trailer for Alexander Payne's Nebraska, and only the fact that it was a Payne film made me want to see it.The premise seemed a dead end: Bruce Dern plays an elderly man named...
View ArticleA Korean Cult Thriller Gets A Spike Lee Makeover
Spike Lee's movies typically carry the label "A Spike Lee Joint," but Oldboy doesn't. He calls it "a Spike Lee Film," which my guess is Lee's way of saying he's a gun for hire — and that after a line...
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