Film
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: Amy Adams Trapped in Vintage Britcom!
For an obscure tale of a virginal London governess who discovers her true calling running interference for…
Film
Charlie Bartlett: Not Enough Teen Angst
Like most wanna-be heroes of the eager-to-please teen comedy, poor little rich boy Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin)…
Film
The Spiderwick Chronicles: Nick Nolte Will Terrify Your Kids
Freud lives and prospers in The Spiderwick Chronicles, an exceptionally oedipal fantasy adventure based on the popular…
Film
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: The Horror of Birth Control in Ceausescus Romania
The extraordinary Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, more comfortably known as “that abortion movie…
Film
In Bruges: Colin Farrell Has Adorable Eyebrows, Shoots People
Black, fluffy, and gloriously conjoined, Colin Farrell’s eyebrows aren’t the prettiest things about In Bruges—that honor falls…
Film
P.S. I Love You: Hilary Swank Sees Dead Person
This isn’t the first time that Richard LaGravenese, the gifted writer of A Little Princess and The…
Film
The Savages: Laura Linney Comes Unglued
Simmering below the squeamish elder-care euphemism “uncharted territory” is a fearful awareness that when it comes to dealing…
Film
The Kite Runner: Beloved Book Becomes Flaccid Potboiler
Kites fly high over San Francisco and Kabul, but not much else soars in Marc Forster’s flaccid…
Film
Atonement: Keira Knightley Stars in Her First Bodice-Ripper
Rereading Atonement last weekend, my first thought was: I hope to God that Joe Wright—whose broadly grinning Pride…
Film
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium: Natalie Portman Keeps Her Clothes On
Writer-director Zach Helm’s amiable but nerveless kids’ movie about a 243-year-old toy-store owner (Dustin Hoffman in shell-shocked hair,…
Film
Lions for Lambs: Professor Redford Leads Seminar on Untarnished Idealism.
Less a war drama than a set of dueling position papers, Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs may be…
Film
Sleuth: Jude Law Embraces Homophobia and Misogyny
Kenneth Branagh’s ferociously arty, vacuous remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1972 movie pares the action down to a…
Film
Lars and the Real Girl: Ryan Gosling in Painful Misfire
How painful to watch Ryan Gosling, one of the most elastic actors of his generation, smirk and gawp…
Film
Rendition: Jake Gyllenhaal Turns Into Christopher Walken
For all its brave rhetoric about 9/11 and the Constitution, Gavin Hood’s slick thriller about American outsourcing of…
Film
David & Layla: A Multiculti Mishmash
Jay Jonroy, an Iraqi Kurd now living in New York, has had two close relatives end up in…
Film
The Jane Austen Book Club: Their Estates Do Lie Adjacent
If you can’t get enough of the Mutually Supportive Sisterhood narrative, there’s every chance you’ll go for this…
Film
December Boys: Harry Potter Fans Wont Hold It Against Daniel Radcliffe
If Daniel Radcliffe is hoping for an acting life after Harry Potter, he might want to be choosier…
Film
In Search of Mozart: Stick to Your LPs Instead
Wolfgang Amadeus gets lionized—and somewhat embalmed—in this solemn Festschrift by British filmmaker Phil Grabsky. At two hours plus,…
Film
Across the Universe: Beatles Narrowly Survive Brawl With Julie Taymor
After Hair and the mass marketing of tie-dye, can the ’60s be shrunk to fit any further? Yes,…