Film
The Grey: Liam Neeson Versus the Wolves
I was told there would be more wolf-punching. If you crash Liam Neeson and six disposable buddies in…
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
Haywire: Soderbergh’s MMA Sex Comedy
Haywire‘s plot is boilerplate triple-cross, cloak-and-dagger stuff—but the action choreography by director Steven Soderbergh and MMA fighter Gina…
Film
Young Goethe in Love: Germany’s Sturm und Drang Rock Star
That this film was originally titled Goethe! should give you a sense of how much silly Sturm und…
Film
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos: Saving a Nation From a Trash-Filled Canyon
Winner of the award for Wordiest Title of the Month, this Japanese anime also features a very long…
Film
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Oscar-Trolling 9/11 Kitsch
Director Stephen Daldry has never met a Big Theme he didn’t like: After 2002’s The Hours, a lugubrious…
Film
How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?: The British Starchitect Follows the Money
In this country, British modernist “starchitect” Norman Foster is perhaps best known for the Hearst headquarters in New…
Film
Carnage: Kate Winslet Battles Jodie Foster!
In Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s hit play, posh pair Alan and Nancy (Christoph Waltz and Kate…
Film
El Sicario, Room 164: A Mexican Assassin Tells All
The subject of Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary portrait is a former resident of Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city where,…
Film
Littlerock: Mumblecore in the Desert
Two young Japanese tourists get stranded in a sunbaked hamlet far north of L.A. Their destination? Manzanar. So…
Film
The Iron Lady: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher
In the first scene of The Iron Lady, which re-teams director Phyllida Lloyd with her Mamma Mia! star…
Film
Pariah: Like a Lesbian 400 Blows
The first 10 minutes of Dee Rees’ funny, moving, nuanced, and impeccably acted first feature, in which coming…
Film
In the Land of Blood and Honey: Angelina Jolie’s Balkan Folly
It’s 1992, and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and Danijel (Goran Kostic) are about to hook up in a Bosnian…
Film
Urbanized: Part Three of Gary Hustwit’s Design Trilogy
A micro-to-macro expansion of, and logical conclusion to, Gary Hustwit’s elegantly compelling, design-in-the-everyday doc trilogy (which investigated the…
Film
Tomboy: Learning the Gender Codes in a French Elementary School
A sensitive portrait of childhood just before pubescence, Tomboy, the second film by writer/director Céline Sciamma, astutely explores…
Film
Holiday Film Guide 2011: The Multiplex Menagerie
Which are you more excited to see this Christmas weekend: the horse, the dragon, the zoo, or Snowy…
Film
A Dangerous Method: Sigmund Freud Battles Carl Jung!
A Dangerous Method, the title of David Cronenberg’s viscerally cerebral new film, is something of an understatement. As…
Film
The 10 Best Films of 2011
1. A Dangerous Method See review. 2. Melancholia On any other day, this might have ranked first. Directed…
Film
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: Rooney Mara Makes It Work
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is hardly a personal project. Still, David Fincher’s sveltely malevolent remake of…
Film
War Horse: An Equine Love Story Is Interrupted by World War I
A doggedly overwrought production less felt than facile, Steven Spielberg’s War Horse is an essentially uninvolving prestige adaptation.…