Pariah Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) For just over an hour, Pariah ticks along solidly, but unspectacularly. A series of good-to-great performances elevate the film above its paint-by-numbers screenplay, but just before its dramatic climax, the plot machinations rear their ugly head and transform even the film’s most vivid characters into devices meant to take us from point […]
Into the Abyss
Into the Abyss, the second and better of two 2011 documentaries (after Cave of Forgotten Dreams) directed by Werner Herzog, is a modern-day version of In Cold Blood. It’s a very thoroughly researched true-crime story, but it’s a little dry and tends to drift off point. Is this a detailed retelling of a horrific triple […]
The Skin I Live In Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) The Skin I Live In is like a surrealist painting. Like the best Dalis and Picassos, some will likely be horrified by what director Pedro Almodovar has put forward. Others, like me, will find the film evocative and discussion-worthy. Neither reaction is necessarily right because the film is both painfully intense and […]
My Week with Marilyn Review
RATING: (2 STARS) The story in My Week with Marilyn is one that seems quite cinematic. Two screen legends butt heads on set while one fools around with a young assistant director once her husband leaves town. It’s juicy, deserves to be told, and could have made for a fine motion picture. But in the […]
The Iron Lady Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) The Iron Lady lacks focus, plain and simple. It strives to be this grand biopic that encompasses the whole of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s life. But for such a big, polarizing figure, it feels as if her messier, more complicated moments are glossed over in favor of spending time with a dementia-riddled […]
Semper Fi: Always Faithful
Told through the eyes of a still-grieving father, Semper Fi: Always Faithful is more than just an Erin Brockovich-style story of the little guy fighting big bad polluters. It’s a personal examination on what “closure” really means. Yes, the film’s main focus is Jerry Ensminger’s quest for tangible and emotional justice, but what resonates more […]
Hell and Back Again
Though structurally interesting, Danfung Dennis’ Oscar-nominated documentary Hell and Back Again suffers from a number of small, frustrating problems that collectively hinder it beyond the point of recommendation. Most of these problems are personal ones to me, so this, more than anything I’ve written in a while, should be taken with a grain of salt. […]
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Review
RATING: (1 STAR) Stephen Daldry’s latest film, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, tries to make sense of one of the worst days—perhaps the “Worst Day”—in American history. It does so through the eyes of a pre-teen boy, who appears to suffer from Asperger’s Disease. And what does it ultimately tell us? That New Yorkers are […]
A Better Life Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Chris Weitz, director of The Twilight Saga: New Moon and About a Boy, isn’t a name you’d expect to be attached to a humanistic drama about illegal immigrants, but his A Better Life is about just that, and it’s a very mature piece of work. The film has gotten a great deal […]
Project Nim
On the surface, James Marsh’s Project Nim, is about a group of people’s quest to teach a chimp sign language. And if it was just about that, it probably would have been a great documentary. But it touches on so many other, very meaningful themes—most notably, abandonment and selfishness—that one can’t help but admire the […]
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
If nothing else, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 proves there is such a thing as truth in advertising. Billed as the greatest hits of some found footage filmed during the titular time period, the film really is a mixtape. But not every track on a mixtape is created equal. As such, I really dug some […]
Le Havre Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Aki Kaurasmaki’s Le Havre does for the small French village what Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris does for its titular city. Kaurasmaki presents an uber-romantic view of the kind of community where everyone knows everyone, and baguette and stinky cheese can be bought on every corner. It seems more than a little […]
The Artist Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist is a crowd-pleaser through and through. The film is just bursting with wit and energy, and like some of the best and most timeless silent films of old, it doesn’t need to do much to bring a 100-minute-long smile to your face. In fact, it doesn’t do much. […]
Shame Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) Does a film need a soul in order to be successful? Steve McQueen’s Shame doesn’t have one, but it’s hard to argue that the film doesn’t work on at least some level. The film is colder and more emotionally distant than perhaps any other from 2011, and the way it places us […]
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Hold on to your hats, folks. Detective Dee is in town. Part mystical Western, part kung fu epic, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is either the most glorious send-up of Asian action films or the most over-the-top foreign film I’ve ever seen. Regardless of which it is, I […]
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a superior thriller that accomplishes the unfathomable in condensing John le Carré’s masterful British espionage novel into an appropriately dense but followable two-hour film. And shockingly, not a ton of important detail is lost in the translation. Director Tomas Alfredson (following up the sensational Let the Right […]
