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Sherlock Holmes
As overemphatic as one might expect from the ham-fisted Guy Ritchie, this resurrection of the world’s most famous…
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Broken Embraces: Labyrinth of Celluloid
Pedro Almodóvars latest comedy delves ever deeper into movies.
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Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Closing out a pretty great year for children’s movies—Up, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline among them—Betty…
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It’s Complicated: Empty Nest
Catering to female filmgoers of a certain age, Nancy Meyers keeps making the same movie over and over…
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An American Journey: Commemorating Robert Franks Landmark Photography Book
Driving from New York to San Francisco, Robert Frank couldn’t have foreseen how his photo essay The Americans…
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Flame & Citron: World War II From the Danish Perspective
Of all European nations, Denmark enjoys the nearest thing to a heroic record of resisting its Nazi occupiers—which…
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Collapse: Cranky Subject, Curious Director
Chris Smith’s one-man doc on veteran doomsayer Michael C. Ruppert holds less interest as another sky-is-falling dispatch than…
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They Came to Play: Music Played for Love, Not Money
In the ongoing hand-wringing debates over classical music’s future in America, all the focus is on the classical-music…
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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee: A May-December Romance, Many Years Later
Rebecca Miller’s fourth feature may be the only film you’ll ever see with both Cornel West and Monica…
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Sonicsgate: How Howard Schultz and David Stern Lost Our NBA Franchise
Some cities treat their pro sports teams like a close family member. In Seattle, we view them more…
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Serious Moonlight: Meg Ryan Continues to Confound
Timothy Hutton is duct-taped to the potty, and Meg Ryan is just plain potty, in this posthumously produced…
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Me and Orson Welles: Zac Efron Holds His Own in a Very Enjoyable Backstage Tale
Orson Welles lives on not only in posthumously restored director’s cuts of his movies but as a character…
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Earth Days: Eco-Doc Recalls the Green Early 70s
Veteran doc maker Robert Stone (Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, Oswald’s Ghost) assembles nine talking, graying heads…
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The Princess and the Frog: Disney Runs Afoul of Race
Six decades after unleashing the persistent NAACP bugaboo Song of the South (1946), that peculiar cultural institution known…
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Invictus: No, Matt Damon Doesnt Play Nelson Mandela
A rosy tale of racial reconciliation neatly wrapped in a triumphalist sports movie (and blessedly free of spurious…
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La Danse: Just Another Superb Doc From Frederick Wiseman
Frederick Wiseman’s magnificent documentary offers a portrait of suppleness and agility—not just of the dancers’ bodies but of…
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Brothers: Jake Gyllenhaal Stars in a Needless Remake
Jim Sheridan’s remake of Danish director Susanne Bier’s 2005 original about the familial and psychic trauma caused by…
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Everybodys Fine: Robert De Niros Holiday Miscalculation
Don’t be misled by the cheesy, generic poster for Kirk Jones’ retelling of Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1990 Stanno tutti…
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Up in the Air: George Clooney Swings the Corporate Axe
There is something oddly familiar about Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, in which George Clooney plays a…