The Words Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal—the writing-directing duo behind The Words—go through such pains to make their film (which is about novelists) feel like a novel that it loses sense of its more cinematic qualities. The Words moves at a glacial pace. It’s overwritten. Its stately score and incredibly formal look make the entire exercise feel […]
Who’s That Knocking at My Door Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Martin Scorsese’s directorial career kicked off with 1967’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door, a stylistically ambitious but dramatically flat slice of New York Italian realism. Show this movie to someone unfamiliar with the director’s masterpieces, and he or she would likely point out the tremendous potential that drips from almost every […]
To Rome with Love Review
RATING: (2 STARS) After lighting up the City of Lights after dark in Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen takes his talents to Rome for another ensemble comedy—To Rome with Love. Though it’s packed with talented actors and actresses (and features Allen’s return to acting for the first time since 2006’s Scoop), it’s sloppily constructed and […]
Declaration of War Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Welcome to indie film hell, where childhood cancer is stylized in a way that makes it seem twee and inconsequential. It’s fine if a director, known or unknown, wants to make something for the hipster set. Go ahead, pack in all the playful technique, skinny jeans, and Sigur Ros music you want […]
Snow White and the Huntsman Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Snow White and the Huntsman is a concept in search of a cinematic purpose. Because its creators can’t find it, they attempt to win their audience over with flashy, extravagant special effects. They fail. The film is almost painful to watch. It’s incredibly episodic, and the connective tissue between scenes is flimsier […]
The Giant Mechanical Man Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Calling Lee Kirk’s The Giant Mechanical Man slight would be a massive understatement. It’s infinitesimal. It focuses on two kindly individuals going through pre-mid-life mid-life crises. That’s a subject certainly worthy of the screen, but any film this formulaic just isn’t. The characters are flat and frustrating, the beats are totally predictable, […]
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 […]
Carnage Review
RATING: (2 STARS) With names like Roman Polanski, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet front and center, Carnage has no right being such a wet blanket of a movie. Its premise is golden—two sets of parents meet to discuss a physical altercation between their children. Chaos, of course, ensues, but it’s […]
Another Earth Review
RATING: (2 STARS) With Another Earth, director Mike Cahill really goes out on a limb. It’s one thing to make an indie sci-fi film about the discovery of a new planet that exactly mirrors our own, but it’s something else entirely to put that fascinating concept completely in the background and instead focus on two […]
J. Edgar Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar reminded me of all the reasons I hate biopics. This is a totally uninspired film—a paint-by-numbers history lesson that, yes, features good performances but takes no chances. A film needs to be extraordinarily well-made to overcome the trappings of such a familiar narrative trajectory, and this one just […]
Cars 2 Review
RATING: (2 STARS) I know I’m not the first disappointed reviewer to make this statement, but I have no choice: With Cars 2, Pixar has finally made a stinker. I take no joy out of writing these words. I, like many, counted on the beloved animation studio to churn out an exceptional film every year. […]
Beginners Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Beginners is a snooze. Plain and simple. And I really don’t like dismissing it so bluntly because it’s a very personal story. Director Mike Mills based Beginners, at least in part, on his own life—specifically, the material dealing with the main character’s elderly father who comes out of the closet after his […]
Like Crazy Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Like Crazy, one of the most buzzed about films coming out of Sundance earlier this year, is about love at its most frustrating. The film’s protagonists can’t see the forest for the trees. They’re so caught up in how they feel in the moment that they make foolish decisions that threaten to […]
Meek’s Cutoff Review
RATING: (2 STARS) I’m not one to complain about a movie being slow. After all, I’m a big supporter of movies like The American and Drive. Hell, my favorite movie of all-time—2001: A Space Odyssey—is really slow. But when a movie goes nowhere and takes a really long time to do so, I’m more inclined […]
The Big Year Review
RATING: (2 STARS) The Big Year is a movie about competitive birdwatching—or “birding” as the film’s main characters would insist you call it—and it’s about as forgettable a movie experience as I’ve had in some time. Not atrocious, like Colombiana or Dream House, just insignificant. And that would be fine, I guess, except for the […]
Crazy, Stupid, Love. Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Crazy, Stupid, Love. isn’t exactly a bad movie, but it commits two absolutely unforgivable errors. It’s embarrassingly unoriginal (haven’t we seen Steve Carell get the makeover treatment and try to pick up women before?), but worse, it takes a dreadful subplot and gives it far more screen time than it deserves. Really, […]
