Film
SIFF Hides Son of Rambow, Its Gala Opener, From Nasty Critics
Why give a Sundance success the Snakes on a Plane treatment?
Film
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea: Who Knew John Waters Was an Environmentalist?
In February, as plans for a $6 billion Salton Sea rehab project were being fought over (where to…
Film
Jindabyne: A Better Raymond Carver Adaptation Than Short Cuts
My least favorite Robert Altman film, 1993’s Short Cuts, hijacked a bunch of Raymond Carver stories and turned…
Film
French Corruption, Kawai Japanese Rocker Girls, and a Hitchcock Jewel
Big Fox, $19.98 If, when you saw Big for the first or 14th time, you said to yourself,…
Film
Fay Grim: Parker Posey Survives the 90s Better Than Hal Hartley
It’s hard to remember, but back in the early 1990s, Hal Hartley was regarded as the hot young…
Film
28 Weeks Later: Zombies Run Amok Inside the Green Zone!
The story thus far: Seven months have gone by since the Rage virus passed from chimp fang to…
Film
Julie Christie Loses Her Mind, But Beautifully, in Away From Her
In this superbly tacit chamber piece, intolerable pressure is brought to bear on the 44-year marriage between a…
Film
Offside: Iranian Women Fight for Their Right to Soccer Fandom
Jafar Panahi is a paradoxical populist. He makes crowd-pleasing art movies and is a virtuoso director of (non)…
Film
Empowerment and Romance, Sweetly Baked, With Tragic Aftertaste in Waitress
Mildly quirky and zealously cute, Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress is the story of three irrepressible gal pals slinging pie…
Film
Zoo: Tabloid Tale Turns Into Mushy Plea for Tolerance
Bestiality is the determinedly nonsnickering subject of Robinson Devor’s strenuously aestheticized treatment of the infamous 2005 Enumclaw Horse-Sex…
Film
At-Risk Youth Saved by the Power of Phat Rhymes in The Hip Hop Project
This is a story you’ve heard before: Inner-city kids falling to drugs/crime/pregnancy are saved by the power of…
Film
The Ex’s Superior Comedic Ensemble Makes Zach Braff Tolerable
When career slacker Tom (Zach Braff) gets fired from his latest job, he packs up his wife, Sofia…
Film
Lohan Shows Her Screen Talent in Georgia Rule
Three noisy women and a worn-out premise rattle around trying to make contact in Georgia Rule, an incoherent…
Film
Sacco and Vanzetti: Like a 1920s Prologue to the War on Terror
Two lambs to the slaughter, the Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927 for…
Film
In the Pit: Doc Turns Hardship Into Pretty Pictures
Mexico City’s Periférico freeway stands above an unknown number of graves holding some of the many men and…
Film
Chick Flick Invades Tibet in Dreaming Lhasa
The adverts promise a voyage to Tibet like we’ve never seen, but Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s vision…
Film
The World Widened Web
Torpid third Spidey segment sags under character bloat, mission creep, and evil schizo tap dancing. Quit while you're…
Film
Kris Kristofferson Co-Stars With Vermont in Disappearances
Ever since his exquisite 1994 debut feature, Where the Rivers Flow North, the Vermont-based writer-director Jay Craven has…
Film
Peruvian Princess Takes Charge of Her Destiny in Madeinusa
A 14-year-old Indian princess in the high Peruvian altaplana, “Madeinusa”—yes, that’s her allegorical name—is ripe for the plucking.…