Film
The Master: Much Craft, Much Hype, No Resolution
In admitting that “Master” Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, offering a new twist on the roiling vulnerability Anderson…
Michael Atkinson
Film
Arbitrage: Richard Gere Goes Broke
Slick and grown-up as Richard Gere himself, this intricate fiscal thriller takes a dead bead on extreme privilege,…
Film
For Ellen: Paul Dano as Hopeless Rocker
The method-y, elfin brooder-hipster star of the moment, Paul Dano has four movies out this year, but here…
Film
China Heavyweight: Boxers Fight Uphill Odds
A paradigmatic “portrait” documentary—the popular sort that eschews cultural information and risk to focus on “how it feels”…
Film
The Bourne Legacy: Jeremy Renner Is No Matt Damon
The Bourne films have more than just overstayed their welcome and outlasted the Ludlum books—they’ve been Van Halenized,…
Film
The Imposter: A Creepy Frenchman Cons a Texas Clan
This deft, atmospheric Errol Morris–style tour through the phenomenon that is “serial imposter” Frédéric Bourdin homes in on…
Film
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai: Impressive Swordplay in 3-D
The transformation might be complete: The crap-and-gore, genre-mincing Tasmanian devil of Asian pulp psychosis, Takashi Miike, whom we’ve…
Film
The Woman in the Fifth: Ethan Hawke in a Parisian Dreamworld Thriller
The first film from émigré director Pawel Pawlikowski since 2004’s dreamy My Summer of Love, this thoroughly odd…
Film
The Manzanar Fishing Club: Japanese-Americans Remember Their Shameful Detention
This documentary opens with a photomontage of Japanese-Americans in the late ’30s and early ’40s, just before the…
Film
Headhunters: Art Theft and Murder in Norway
Arguably the strangest of the many recent Scandinavian movies to rifle through modern American-indie tropes and then cash…
Film
Undefeated: An Oscar-Winning Football Doc With Seattle Roots
An inspirational sports tearjerker in distilled form, this new Harvey Weinstein–hawked doc lands in North Memphis, where the…
Film
In Darkness: Yet Another Holocaust Drama
Holocaust culture has proven to be essentially infinite—almost 70 years after the end of World War II, untold…
Film
My Reincarnation: Tibetan Buddhism and Its Discontents
A mellow doc that seems all set to cash in on the “spirituality” market, Jennifer Fox’s new film…
Film
My Joy: Runaway Iniquity in Modern Russia
Imagine the early, hellaciously bleak work of Cormac McCarthy transposed to the corrupt outlands of modern Russia and/or…
Film
Charlotte Rampling: The Look: Surprise, She’s Better With a Script
“A self-portrait through others,” as it’s subtitled, this conversational hall of mirrors never takes its microscope off the…
Film
Empire of Silver: Another Chinese Historical Pageant
This year’s “sweeping” post-post-Fifth-Gen Chinese epic, Empire of Silver is filthy with luxuriant clichés, from sun-roasted Gobi landscapes…
Film
The Debt: Helen Mirren Hunts Nazis
A remake of the far more brisk 2007 Israeli film with a bullpen of aging stars, this rather…
Film
Atrocious: Something’s Blair Witchy in Spain
A Spanish Blair Witch DIY-er with a nutsy, preemptive title, this trifle scoots and skitters along guilelessly, as…
Film
I Saw the Devil: Just Another South Korean Slasher Flick
The pan-genre über-hack of the new Korean zeitgeist, Kim Jee-woon has been deft in some arenas: 2003’s A…
Film
Nostalgia for the Light: Part of a Weekend Tribute to Patricio Guzmán
Chile’s self-appointed, one-man Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Patricio Guzmán has devoted the past four decades to chronicling the…