9 years ago
Theatrical (10 posts found)
Coming to a theater near you
“Very Good Girls” Is A Delicate, Heartfelt Coming-Of-Age Tale
If you've never been a 19-year old girl, to paraphrase The Virgin Suicides, you might not get the gravity of Lilly's (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri's (Elizabeth Olsen) dilemmas in Very Good Girls. But the path these girls are following during their last summer bef...
Read more →
In “Lucy,” Scarlett Johansson Accesses 100% Of Her Awesomeness
And now for something completely different: Luc Besson presents Cosmos. Wet blankets across the Internet will invariably find a reason to fault Lucy, Besson's latest, for leaning on urban legends and pseudo-science as the make-up of its basic conceit. If Neil ...
Read more →
“Happy Christmas” An Enjoyable Mumblecore Entry
Am I supposed to have an opinion on mumblecore? Because I honestly don't. And I feel like any review of a Joe Swanberg film is supposed to be prefaced with some expounding on how the writer feels about mumblecore, as it's a style that draws reactions in a very...
Read more →
“Magic in the Moonlight” An Unabashedly Romantic and Optimistic Entry in Woody Allen’s Career
What a period of refinement this is for Woody Allen. With last year’s Blue Jasmine, 2011’s Midnight in Paris, and now Magic in the Moonlight, the storied writer-director has ushered in his most confident work in years, maybe decades, as he maintains his one-fi...
Read more →
“A Most Wanted Man” A Precise And Moody Curtain Call for Philip Seymour Hoffman
The bulk of the planning for the September 11th attacks did not take place in an Afghan manse or a Saudi backroom -- it happened in an apartment in Hamburg, Germany. Contrary to what the public may think, terrorism is not Middle Eastern, not even Islamic terro...
Read more →
“The Purge: Anarchy” Thrills While Critiquing The Kills
This smart horror sequel doesn't just paint a picture of what could be--it argues we're already there.
Read more →
“Mood Indigo” Manages To Be Just Quirky Enough To Be Charming
There are levels to twee, and there are indeed levels to how much twee a person can withstand in one sitting. Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo often comes dangerously close to exceeding the limit, but there is something so deliciously intriguing about the film in s...
Read more →
A Talented Cast Can’t Save “Sex Tape”
The most frustrating movies are not those that are outright bad, but those that come so close to being good, only to fail. They find themselves bumping against good ideas almost without trying, only to forget them or wander away in search of something nonsensi...
Read more →
“I Origins” A Half-Baked And Purely Guilty Pleasure
The multi-talented actress/writer Brit Marling has become an integral part of an independent film brand through her recent artistic collaborations with filmmakers Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij. With high-concept, budget-conscious titles such as Cahill’s Anoth...
Read more →
“The Congress” Is Full of Sensory Overload And Not Much Else
The received wisdom rap against Robin Wright -- which I first recall seeing in one of those bloviating columns by know-it-all screenwriter William Goldman – is that this stunningly beautiful and hugely talented actress could have been one of the biggest movie ...
Read more →
