Clik here to view.
The Happening
Shyamalan’s failings here aren’t in his concept but in his execution; it’s not necessarily laughable stuff, but Shyamalan is on such unsure footing in how to present such indeterminate information to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Incredible Hulk
Let’s not kid ourselves: all this talk of the film’s relentless attention to the cosmetic is a constructive way of saying it barely has a blessed idea in its head. The film’s body fixation is blatantly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Last Mistress
By her own account, The Last Mistress is Catherine Breillat’s most accessible film, the only one that doesn’t set out to break any taboos. But I have to respectfully disagree with her assertion, even...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Get Smart
Carell’s Smart is an intelligence analyst with a scrupulous and pedantic work ethic, and the movie even has the chutzpah to suggest that Smart’s overthinking and overanalysis, while tedious to comedic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
WALL*E
As much as I would love to equivocate about the film’s reification of gender or its satirical barbs at the overstimulated, grotesquely obese humans who lazily populate the spaceship Axiom, a Guy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hancock
Hancock is an astute title for a vehicle whose star ostensibly “owns” the Fourth of July weekend at the box office. But while the Founding Father’s surname alone speaks to the superhero’s deep-seated...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Felon
Felon is a confused movie hobbled by its unwillingness to either fully engage its fundamental conflict or pick a side and stay there. If the results can prove unwieldy at best and disingenuous at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lou Reed's Berlin
The irony of Reed's early solo career is that although his sleaze-hungry listeners liked the idea of taking a walk on the wild side they weren't prepared to face the natural consequences. And...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Human Condition
The only film experience, to which I can compare The Human Condition is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 15-and-a-half-hour adaptation of Alfred Doblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. At first the correspondences...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
As is usually the case with such things, the critical response is more interesting (and infuriating) than the movie itself. Yet HB2 does have its share of autonomous annoyances, enough to shame those...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Dark Knight
A catch-22: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight demands, in a mean, raspy voice, to be taken more seriously than your average comic book movie. But when one endeavors to do just that, one is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Boy A
Directed with a fine eye for spatial detail by John Crowley and featuring a heartrending performance by newcomer Andrew Garfield, the film captures the minute fluctuations in intimacy and temperament,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mamma Mia!
People might try to tell you that it's all good fun, that if you just don't take it seriously, Mamma Mia! is some sort of delightful confection. Don't believe them. Instead of seeing this movie, do...
View ArticleThe Secret of the Grain
The result is a curiously lopsided film that begins as an unassumingly naturalistic drama, then suddenly waylays the spectator with a third act that is, in succession, hair-raising, annoying,...
View ArticleLast Chance Harvey
Later, as they stroll alongside the Thames, past used booksellers and buskers, incessant score strumming away, she asks about the wedding reception that Harvey is missing, and encourages him to go. Of...
View Article
