Film
June & July: Bored (But Not Boring) Northwest Twins With a Secret
Voted top film at the Local Sightings fest last fall, Brady Hall’s debut feature is set out in…
Film
Joshua: Parenthood as a Literal (Yet Funny) Horror Show
Every few decades, we get a superior demon-child thriller (see: The Bad Seed, The Omen). In part they…
Film
Southern Melodrama Meets Japanese Ghosts
Our Very Own Miramax, $29.99 “New!” shouts the sticker on the shrink-wrap of this two-year-old, small-town-in-’78-set melodramedy. It…
Film
Brooklyn Rules: Badda-Bing, Badda-Yawn
As a longtime series writer on The Sopranos, Terence Winter admirably steered clear of most of the hoary…
Film
Introducing the Dwights: Brenda Blethyn Makes Our Eyes and Ears Bleed
Brenda Blethyn’s trademark histrionics—maternal blubbering and drama-queen shrillness—worked smashingly for her intentionally trying role in Secrets & Lies,…
Film
Rescue Dawn: Werner Herzog Explores the Innocent Side of the Vietnam War
How many thousands of pounds has Christian Bale lost and gained and lost again from The Machinist to…
Film
Broken English: Parker Posey Deserves Better Than This. And We Do, Too.
Nothing has turned out as expected for Nora, the drifting, doleful heroine played by Parker Posey in Broken…
Film
Manufactured Landscapes: Why Your iPhone Is Destroying the Environment
On a gallery wall, one of the slag heaps or pit mines or ship-breaking beaches captured by Canadian…
Film
LIceberg: BelgiumAgain Proven the Least Amusing of Benelux Countries
If the sight gag is dead, this excruciatingly precious Belgian comedy is less a resurrection than an autopsy.…
Film
License to Wed: John Krasinski, Take Me Away! (From Robin Williams)
A blitzed-looking man stumbling out of a screening of this dreadful excuse for unromantic comedy volunteered that the…
Film
You Kill Me: Just Shoot Me. No, Really
Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Montana-born director John Dahl made a name for himself…
Film
Fido: Zombies Deprived of Necessary Political Subtext
You think they’re dead, these zombie-film parodies, but one after another, they keep lumbering back. Not much brain…
Film
Transformers: Submit to Michael Bay’s Robot Love!
Michael Bay completes his totalitarian assault on the average American filmgoer. Just like we asked him to.
Film
Snow Cake: Sigourney Weaver Stoops to Disease-of-Week Movie
In the kooky little Canadian town of Wawa, whose chief selling point is a 30-foot statue of a…
Film
Half-Naked White Girl Teaches Samuel L. Jackson to Play the Blues. And More!
Black Snake Moan Paramount, $29.99 The best place to see Craig Brewer’s mash-up of blood-boiling exploitation elements would’ve…
Film
Sicko: Michael Moore Makes an Alarming, Infuriating Diagnosis
“We’re Americans. We go into other countries when we need to. It’s tricky, but it works.” So declares…
Film
Live Free or Die Hard: Bruce Willis Clings Manfully to the Timex Past
Willis rejects digital reboot in favor of rusty action-flick mechanics.
Film
Walking to Werner: Local Director Becomes Long-Distance Herzog Stalker
Given a choice between importance and obsession, I’ll always bet on the latter as a good documentary subject.…
Film
Evening: Even Claire Danes Can’t Save Muddled Susan Minot Adaptation
Parked uneasily between sensitive indie and studio chick flick, Lajos Koltai’s Evening makes star-studded hash of Susan Minot’s…
Film
Ratatouille: Brad Bird and Pixar Earn Their Michelin Stars
In the new animated feature by The Incredibles director Brad Bird, a rat of rarefied palate (and exceptional…