The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) The latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen was originally meant to be an anthology series for Netflix, but somewhere between its conception and the Venice Film Festival this year, it became a two-hour, six-part anthology film. On the surface, this treatment will turn some viewers off, and “disjointed” and “uneven” will […]
Syriana Review
“The Beverly Hillbillies” called oil “black gold,” which sums things up quite well. It’s a commodity that people like Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood would sell his soul for back at the turn of the 19th century, and in the century between when that film is set and when Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana is both set and released, the […]
Blue Caprice Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Director Alexandre Moors’ Blue Caprice takes the horror you felt watching We Need to Talk About Kevin a few years ago (assuming you could sit through it) and sets it in the real world. That isn’t to say Lynn Ramsey’s film about an evil teenage boy who goes on a killing spree […]
Lincoln Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The way Daniel Day-Lewis towers over Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is almost a shame. His performance is one of such immersion that you’ll occasionally lose sight of what’s going on around him—even the words he’s speaking. Or maybe that has to do with Tony Kushner’s drier-than-desert-sand screenplay. Abraham Lincoln’s life and presidency are […]
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 […]
