The Kid with a Bike Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Those familiar with the films of the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, shouldn’t be surprised by what The Kid with a Bike has to offer. As a former Dardenne virgin who popped his cherry here, I found myself surprisingly moved. The story is pretty bare-bones, but it’s an easy one to get […]
Sleepless Night Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Better than Bond, better than Bourne, better than Bauer, the new French thriller Sleepless Night sets a new bar for white-knuckle action movies. Taking place over a 24-hour period and primarily in one giant nightclub, the film is intense in ways no other has been in years. Vincent (Tomer Sisley) and his […]
The Loneliest Planet Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) There’s a moment near the midpoint of Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet that turns a happy couple into a doubtful one. It changes an adventurous trek through the beautiful mountains of Georgia into a desolate, fearful, and truly hellish journey home. And it transforms a good-looking, unsetting film into something as complex, […]
Promised Land Review
RATING: (3 STARS) When it comes to an issue like fracking, it’s hard to find middle ground. Those in favor of it cite the need to source energy more locally, while the anti-fracking crowd has Gasland and flaming water (among other things) to prove its points. Gus Van Sant‘s latest film, Promised Land, is ostensibly […]
Killing Them Softly Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) It took five years following The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for Andrew Dominik to return to the director’s chair. Five years is a long time to build anticipation for an obviously skilled filmmaker, and his skill is what gets Killing Me Softly through some narrative rough patches. […]
Detropia
If the 1920s were the best of times for the city of Detroit, Michigan, the late 2000s were absolutely the worst of times. Detropia, a marvelous documentary by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, isn’t exactly a tale of two cities. It’s interested exclusively in profiling the worst of times in the Motor City, which is […]
Smashed Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) To convincingly play drunk is one of an actor’s greatest challenges. Too often, an onscreen alcoholic comes off as loud, abrasive, and goofy—which would be spot-on if it all didn’t feel so forced. Denzel Washington dialed the drunk act down in last year’s Flight—a borderline remarkable film led by an unquestionably remarkable […]
Amour Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) One has to be prepared for the kind of cinematic masochism that comes with watching a Michael Haneke film before sitting down to his latest, the Best Picture-nominated Amour. But while brutal, this film is almost nothing like the Austrian auteur’s previous work. Everything that’s gruesome comes back to intense sorrow, not […]
Anna Karenina (2012) Review
RATING: (1.5 STARS) Joe Wright’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s monumental novel Anna Karenina is a borderline unendurable experience—an exercise in period porn so devoid of charm, pleasantness, and an artistic reason to exist that each second feels like 1,000. Yes, Wright has updated Tolstoy’s text considerably—a necessary evil of adapting something that’s been seen on […]
The Sessions Review
RATING: (3 STARS) There’s a monologue just past the halfway point of Ben Lewin’s The Sessions that’s so lovingly written it could bring a tear to your eye. It isn’t a thoughtful poem (though the film has plenty of those) but more of a love letter—a love letter to sex. It seems like Mark O’Brien […]
A Late Quartet Review
RATING: (3 STARS) A sedate and stately drama about the dysfunctional private lives of classical musicians, Yaron Zilberman’s A Late Quartet just screams “acting showcase.” And it’s hard to argue the film’s chief pleasure isn’t seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, and Christopher Walken on top of their respective games. There’s a lot more to […]
Silver Linings Playbook Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Silver Linings Playbook is a bright rainbow of a film, but you wouldn’t know it from the way it starts. It’s hard to imagine that a film that opens in a mental hospital with a clearly disturbed Bradley Cooper could, in two hours, convincingly make the leap to a larger-than-life dance competition […]
Not Fade Away Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) David Chase—creator of HBO’s The Sopranos—makes his debut as a feature filmmaker with Not Fade Away. Though not a far cry from his mafia series geographically (this film is more Jersey than Mike “The Situation”), Not Fade Away‘s subject matter couldn’t be more different. Focusing on a young man determined to be […]
Searching for Sugar Man
Searching for Sugar Man definitely contains elements of mystery, and it represents the concert documentary well, but more than anything, this incredible film shows the power of the human interest story. It’s such a broad term—”human interest”—but there’s no better way to describe the life and career of Sixto Rodriguez—a manual laborer in Detroit, Michigan, […]
The Paperboy Review
RATING: (2 STARS) With The Paperboy, Lee Daniels has made a film best described as a brilliant disaster. His touch is unmistakable, interesting, and ballsy, but it’s also the film’s downfall. Watching The Paperboy, you can’t help but feel suffocated by an overwhelmingly unpleasant sense of camp. While blood, sweat, and Nicole Kidman’s urine spurt, […]
The Impossible Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The Impossible tells a very micro-level story about one of the greatest natural disasters in human history. It’s set before, during, and after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that affected men and women in dozens of countries on the Indian Ocean, including Thailand, where Henry (Ewan McGregor), Maria (Naomi Watts), and their […]
