Film
The Unforeseen: A Mess in Texas
A haunting meditation on hubris and the folly of claiming rights over something as elemental—and temperamental—as the environment,…
Film
Under the Same Moon: We Must Secure Our Borders Against Adorable Mexican Child Immigrants!
Firing off a deluge of immigrant-hardship vignettes with the thudding consistency of a tennis-ball machine, Under the Same…
Film
The Singing Revolution: Everything You Wanted to Know About Estonia But Were Afraid to Ask
The title refers to the Estonian independence movement, incubated through the country’s stifled years as a Soviet satellite,…
Film
Caramel: Female Bonding in Lebanon
The multiply blessed young Lebanese writer-director Nadine Labaki looks sublimely like Anna Magnani crossed with Penélope Cruz. She…
Film
Shine a Light: Stones Are Old, Wrinkly, Big
Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film is not only a vanity project for everyone involved, it’s a total…
Film
Live and Become: The Ethiopian Diaspora in Israel
If Live and Become strikes you as a vague title, the young protagonist of Radu Mihaileanu’s film would…
Film
Quantum Hoops: Better, and Smarter, than March Madness
This documentary is firmly rooted in a premise that Americans love and hold dear as a reflection of…
Film
Run, Fat Boy, Run: Simon Pegg Is Suitably Unheroic
Actor-screenwriter Simon Pegg’s follow-up to the surprise hits Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz isn’t as quirky…
Film
Boarding Gate: Asia Argento Is Our New Eurotrash-Diva Icon
There’s basically one reason to see Olivier Assayas’ self-consciously meta-sleazy English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller, and her name is Asia Argento.…
Film
Lost in Beijing: Chinese Babies Are Up for Sale
Two modern couples of distant social strata convene at crotch-level in Lost in Beijing. Lin Dong (Tony Leung…
Film
21: Sorry, Wrong Number
Ben Mezrich’s 2002 best-seller. Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas…
Film
The Hammer: B-List TV Star Adam Carolla Ain’t So Bad
Adam Carolla is one of those journeymen comics you kinda know from television—on MTV’s old Loveline sex-advice show,…
Film
The Heroes of NASA, and Other New Releases
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Warner Bros., $27.98 Beautifully shot, masterfully acted, and…
Film
Shelter: Gay Surfer Dudes Just Wanna Have Fun!
Shelter bides its time with innocuous snapshots of local SoCal color—crashing waves, crystal-blue skies, natives who pronounce the…
Film
Funky Forest: The First Contact: You Explain It to Us
Both lowbrow romp and art film, this Japanese compendium of 21 short vignettes plays like a three-way date…
Film
The Killing of John Lennon: Must We Go There Again?
A nonjudgmental re-creation of 25-year-old Mark David Chapman’s 1980 assassination of the peacenik pop star—from three months prior…
Film
Paranoid Park: Gus Van Sant Among the Skate Punks
The pleasing circularity of Gus Van Sant’s masterful Paranoid Park is not only a function of the film’s…
Film
Snow Angels: Somebody’s Out to Kill Kate Beckinsale!
An unusually blunt melodrama by David Gordon Green, melodious poet of such sentimental delicacies as George Washington and…
Film
Married Life: Pierce Brosnan Stars in Slow Crime Melodrama
Film noir and melodrama cast a long shadow over Ira Sachs’ look back at the rotting heart of…
Film
CJ7: Stephen Chows Latest Chopsocky Comedy
Something of a departure for Hong Kong’s reigning master of special-effects slapstick Stephen Chow, CJ7 is a…