tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42411262709783184782012-01-10T17:49:42.556-05:00Movie Reviews & Film Criticism of Classic & Contemporary CinemaCinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.comBlogger6241100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-25817164552115355922012-01-10T17:42:00.005-05:002012-01-10T17:49:42.564-05:00

Directed by: Alexander PayneWritten by: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim RashFull credits at IMDbOne of the many, many things that irked me about this movie was that, despite some shallow trappings, it wasn't about Hawaii at all—it was merely set there; the archipelago's greatest functions were to provide an ironic counterpoint to the narrative's tribulations, and as weather for a comedy of

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Directed by: Phyllida LloydWritten by: Abi MorganThe connection I made to J. Edgar was that both movies are about a mean and miserable old person looking to justify their poor choices—to vindicate themselves in the sure-to-be-unkind eyes of history. But those might just be my own anti-Thatcher biases at work. The movie actually seems pretty sympathetic to Lady Ironsides, which I would imagine has

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I wrote up a Top 10 list for The L Magazine, which I slightly amended for its contributors' poll. Here's my ballot:1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives2. Drive3. Cold Weather4. Poetry5. A Separation6. Meek's Cutoff7. Tuesday, After Christmas8. Rise of the Planet of the Apes9. In the Family10. Silver Bullets11. Putty Hill12. Weekend13. Pina14. Carnage15. The Trip16. The Artist17.

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Written & Directed by: Michel HazanaviciusFull credits at IMDbTalk about your escapist prestige seasons. Over the past few weeks, I haven't yet seen a 2012 Oscar contender set in the present day; I've hardly even seen one set in America. Scorsese chose to make a movie not only set far in the past, but also in Europe. The Europeans have also been focused on the past and on Europe, as in My Week

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-9843195607957538692011-12-27T13:39:00.004-05:002011-12-27T13:45:30.214-05:00

Written & Directed by: Asghar FarhadiFull credits at IMDbHave Iranian censors gotten sloppy? I suppose they might consider A Separation a straightforward domestic drama; it could certainly pass as one. But to these Western eyes, this shaky cam melodrama, this soap opera for sophisticates, is implicitly critical of its country, an indictment of systemic oppression. Yet it wasn't smuggled out of

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Directed by: Martin ScorseseWritten by: John LoganI'm surprised that Hugo has literary origins. It's such a tactile and mechanical film—it's so cinematic! Such an ode to the analog, the industrial, the mechanical—clocks, cranks, gears, trains, robots—so possessed of a nostalgia for all things pre-digital. So, though it tells the story of post-heyday Georges Melies, and restores appropriate awe

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Directed by: Simon CurtisWritten by: Adrian HodgesFull credits at IMDbThis sort of reminded me of The King's Speech. There's a scene in which production-assistant protagonist Colin takes Miss Monroe on a sight-seeing tour of England's grandest grounds and institutions while narrating their histories—and then gets Derek Fucking Jacobi himself to meet them as a kind of ambassador! Since when did

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Written & Directed by: Nacho VigalondoFull credits at IMDbJulio and Julia have done a bad thing: they've indulged in a drunken one-night stand even though Julia has a boyfriend. They'll spend the rest of Extraterrestrial, writer-director Nacho Vigalondo's sci-fi comedy of cuckolding—a cynical and screwball study of love and suspicion—trying to cover it up, trying to do it again, and finally

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Directed by: Clint EastwoodWritten by: Dustin Lance BlackJ. Edgar turned out to be a lot more interesting than I initially expected. For an hour or so I was thinking, "this is the Oscarbaitiest piece of shit I ever sat through," but then I realized Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black were up to something kinda interesting. Structurally, their film is as tricky and sophisticated as

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Directed by: Joe SwanbergWritten by: Joe Swanberg and Caitlin StainkenFull credits at IMDbDirector Joe Swanberg is working at a pace unseen since the B-movie mavens of the 1930s. Caitlin Plays Herself is his fifth feature released in 2011 (with at least two more in the can), and it feels loosely shot and quickly assembled—but that's not to say clumsily or without forethought. Co-written by

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-59753135764255787062011-11-28T16:37:00.003-05:002011-11-28T16:43:12.169-05:00

Directed by: Craig GillespieWritten by: Marti NoxonFull credits at IMDbVampire stories are usually centered on women, serving as allegories for the alluring threat of sexual desire. But in the brisk, tense and cheeky Fright Night remake, women occupy the margins. Instead, this is a story about boys and men, about growing up and struggling with different models of masculinity. As such, its central

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-52180302726091214152011-11-28T16:29:00.003-05:002011-11-28T16:34:52.013-05:00

Directed by: Steve McQueenWritten by: Abi Morgan & Steve McQueenFull credits at IMDbSteve McQueen's follow-up to the celebrated Hunger is an unintentionally campy Catholic cautionary tale about the pitifulness of a life dedicated solely to earthly pleasures. Make that fleshly pleasures. Wisely, McQueen has again teamed with Michael Fassbender, who plays a Flatiron district-dwelling orgasm

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-10677210524467692252011-11-28T16:21:00.003-05:002011-11-28T16:29:48.190-05:00

Written and Directed by: Werner HerzogFull credits at IMDbWerner Herzog's last few documentaries have taken him to exotic locales: the south of France, Antarctica, the Alaskan wilderness. But his latest travels to perhaps the most unusual yet—rural Texas, where he explores a murder case and crafts a sober, persuasive, and serendipitously timed argument against the death penalty. (We are all Troy

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-30594957823532132362011-11-04T15:27:00.004-05:002011-11-04T15:34:18.621-05:00

Directed by: Henry Joost & Ariel SchulmanWritten by: Christopher B. LandonFull credits at IMDbMinimalism was the key to Paranormal Activity's success, so the sequels' bigger effects, greater number of cameras, and more convoluted narratives have only been detrimental. Paranormal Activity 3 continues to drag the series down; chronologically, it moves it farther back: this threequel, directed by

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-73417745441416409372011-11-04T15:23:00.003-05:002011-11-04T15:26:13.236-05:00

Written & Directed by: Andrew NiccolFull credits at IMDbThe latent cultural rage that recently erupted in Occupy Wall Street protests has apparently been percolating within writer-director Andrew Niccol too. His latest sci-fi allegory is essentially one furious attack on the ruling elite and their calculated system of economic inequality—but with much higher stakes and more transparent morality

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-3875608694199741842011-11-04T15:16:00.003-05:002011-11-04T15:22:42.383-05:00

Written & Directed by: Ti WestFull credits at IMDbThe first scare in The Innkeepers is a cheap jolt, done by one character to another as a practical joke. It's not because director Ti West doesn't know how to scare an audience. I mean, the few scares that he delivers during the bulk of this movie are smart, good-natured, and funny, though The Innkeepers isn't a goofy horror movie. It's just that

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Written & Directed by: Joe SwanbergFull credits at IMDbJust about every young person who has made an indie movie in the last five years shows up in Joe Swanberg's Silver Bullets, adding a fascinating extra layer of self-referentiality to this embittered exploration of artistic collaboration. As you'd expect from one of mumblecore's biggest names, this is a movie about young people suffering

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Written & Directed by: Woody AllenFull credits at IMDbMidnight in Paris, Woody Allen's hard to defend but easy to adore parable about nostalgia, opens with a coffee-table book's worth of postcard Paris views: the landmarks, the iconic tableaux, in sunshine and then in rain. But don't mistake the storm for a sly subversion of the city's allure. It just intensifies it. Owen Wilson takes the Woody

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Directed by: Lucky McKeeWritten by: Lucky McKee & Jack KetchumLucky McKee's gory latest lambasts conservatives; it's also a girl-power allegory, a cheeky genre-twister, and exploitation cinema par excellence. Sean Bridgers stars as the patriarch of an ostensibly ordinary American family who abducts from the forest a feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh)—who seems to be possessed by the Exorcist demon

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-60617106358521837742011-10-20T16:19:00.003-05:002011-10-20T16:24:29.443-05:00

Directed by: Mojtaba Mirtahmasb & Jafar PanahiWritten by: Jafar PanahiFull credits at IMDbThis is Not a Film is a documentary about not making a movie. Jafar Panahi, after all, was barred by the Iranian government from directing movies following a recent arrest for "colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic."

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Written & Directed by: Sean DurkinFull credits at IMDbSean Durkin's exceptionally well-made but emotionally distant debut offers a subjective view of contemporary culthood—the initial seduction, the blind-eyed devotion, the gradual disillusionment, the post-membership paranoia, the lingering appeal. Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister to Mary-Kate and Ashley, stars as the title character—that's her

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-15815163450961681472011-10-20T16:06:00.004-05:002011-10-20T16:11:13.701-05:00

Directed by: George ClooneyWritten by: George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau WillimonFull credits at IMDbSmart and steady, The Ides of March is story of political disillusionment that ends where it began—except in a far, far darker mood. Working out of a corner campaign-office right out of Taxi Driver, Stephen (Ryan Gosling) is a young and brilliant assistant campaign director trying to lock the

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Written & Directed by: Julia LoktevFull credits at IMDbOne thing happens in The Loneliest Planet, a single incident that divides the film in half and unbalances the relationships of its central characters. Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg play an engaged couple pre-honeymooning through the wilderness of Georgia (the former Soviet satellite); non-professional Bidzina Gujabidze is their

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Written & Directed by: Lars von TrierFull credits at IMDbLars von Trier is depressed. He said as much while promoting his last film, Antichrist, and he has said as much in his latest, Melancholia, in which a big ball of doldrums takes the literalized form of a big blue planet from which the movie takes its title, which was hidden behind the sun but is now on a crash course for Earth. Get it? It's

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-38349236347353862272011-10-20T15:41:00.003-05:002011-10-20T15:44:30.812-05:00

Directed by: Roman PolanskiWritten by: Yasmina Reza and Roman PolanskiFull credits at IMDbRoman Polanski's terrific screwball adaptation of a Yasmina Reza play begins with four adults trying peaceably to settle a problem between their sons; it ends with four creatures drunk, exhausted and reverted to a primal state of hostility. Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly play dippy liberals, the parents of

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Directed by: Tony MaylamWritten by: Peter Lawrence & Bob WeinsteinFull credits at IMDbReleased almost to the day a year after Friday the 13th—and the weekend after Friday the 13th Part 2—The Burning is a conspicuous cash-in on the new box-office formula that franchise spawned: in it, the victim of a summer-camp accident—this time a burning, not a drowning!—impossibly survives to wreak vengeance

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Directed by: Nicolas Winding RefnWritten by: Hossein AminiFull credits at IMDbBrooding, sophisticated and drop-dead gorgeous, Drive is lowbrow trash rewrit as highbrow treasure. Its clumsy coincidences, unnaturalistic expository dialogue and pulpy themes—vengeance, sacrifice, redemption—are brought to life with elegance and gravitas: it's the action movie treated like art, the cinematic

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Directed by: Gus Van SantWritten by: Jason LewFull credits at IMDbWhen I describe the plot of Restless, Gus Van Sant's sweet new movie about the paucity of time, the finality of death, and the small measures of love that give our short lives meaning, try not to roll your eyes. Ok, yes, it's about two teenagers who meet cute at a memorial service—she as a guest, he as a crasher, like Harold and

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-29381861669662064302011-09-09T11:31:00.004-05:002011-09-09T11:38:17.442-05:00

Directed by: Steven SoderberghWritten by: Scott Z. BurnsFull credits at IMDbThe alarmist Contagion is the apotheosis of our germophobic age of hand sanitizer. From its repulsed series of shots of people making contact with each other or manhandling water glasses, I learned that no one should never touch anyone or anything, especially their own faces. That's how disease spreads, and diseases are

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-55588242896061970422011-09-09T11:25:00.003-05:002011-09-09T11:29:33.993-05:00

Directed by: David R. EllisWritten by: Will Hayes and Jesse StudenbergFull credits at IMDbIf I think of horror movies set on lakes, I think of Friday the 13th and I Spit on Your Grave. Shark Night 3D takes place on a lake, a shark-infested saltwater lake, and it feels like a blend of those two precedents: like the former, the villain is a preternatural predator—nature's boogeyman, the shark; like

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-17608485524227451492011-09-09T11:18:00.002-05:002011-09-09T11:25:25.734-05:00

Directed by: Gonzalo López-GallegoWritten by: Brian Miller & Cory GoodmanFull credits at IMDbIt's not NASA that launches Apollo 18's secret title-mission—it's the department of defense, signaling that this is no mere movie about the space shuttle program (however serendipitously timed to its demise). It's instead about the noble sacrifice honorable volunteers make for their country—on the orders

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-82607057241252459182011-09-09T11:11:00.003-05:002011-09-09T11:18:19.985-05:00

Directed by: Alex Kalman, Josh Safdie and Ben SafdieIn the Safdies' previous features, The Pleasure of Being Robbed and Daddy Longlegs, the brothers depicted Manhattan with detail as rich as an early Law & Order episode—not just its gritty streetscapes and local "characters" but also its marginal ephemera, on which they let their cameras linger: classic New York moments with hobos, hoods and hot

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Directed by: Troy NixeyWritten by: Guillermo del Toro and Matthew RobbinsFull credits at IMDbDon't Be Afraid of the Dark is a Gothic haunted-house movie (or a haunted Gothic-house movie?) that very, very closely follows the tropes established by all of its forebears (if we're listing some, don't forget The Orphanage, also produced by Guillermo del Toro)—except its monsters are super campy but its

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-14347763624365233552011-08-25T18:37:00.004-05:002011-08-25T18:54:18.025-05:00

Written & Directed by: Terrence Malick Full credits at IMDb The Tree of Life is not a political film—it transcends such material limitations and reaches for something more numinous: to discover humanity's relationship to the divine; to find the whole of cosmological history in just one man. And then, it stops. The movie begins with The Fall, the descent from grace into the entropy of nature, and

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Written & Directed by: Ken Kesey & Alison Ellwood Full credits at IMDb Early on in Magic Trip, an assembled-footage documentary about the Merry Pranksters' famous ride, ringmaster Ken Kesey acknowledges that his now-legendary trip—whose historical significance has perhaps been overstated—couldn't be a book. It's an experience, he says, not literature. (Perhaps a knock to Tom Wolfe, who goes

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-55539193696984308272011-08-25T17:31:00.005-05:002011-08-25T18:05:46.135-05:00

Written & Directed by: Werner Herzog Full credits at IMDb Notice it's not called "The Cave of Pretty Pictures." Herzog's documentary, about the earth's oldest known paintings in France's Chauvet Cave, is a philosophical, poetic examination—in three dimensions!—of these primitive-yet-sophisticated illustrations; it grapples with the mysteries that linger after science has established bare fact.

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Directed by: Adam Wingard Written by: Simon Barrett Full credits at IMDb You know who's worse than serial killers? Fanboys! That's the punch line to this one-gag thriller, in which Amy Seimetz meets-cute nice-guy Joe Swanberg at an AA meeting. She'll eventually take her clothes off for him (though not as quickly as Greta Gerwig would have), and then involve him in a deadly situation when her

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Directed by: Marcus Nispel Written by: Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Sean Hood Full credits at IMDb Of course Lionsgate would tap Marcus Nispel to direct this, right? The Platinum Dunes hack-for-hire has become the modern master of the schlockhouse reboot. Proving he could capably revive the Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw franchises, why not move him on to some other cheesy

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-70370606097063696782011-08-12T17:00:00.002-05:002011-08-25T19:04:28.101-05:00

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer Written by: Michael Diliberti Full credits at IMDb [In one scene, a] lady, the stripper, reveals and then fondles her breasts when Danny McBride brings up his potential $1 million inheritance—because the very mention of money makes ladies' nipples hard? This movie is so full of unfunny misogyny and racist cliches! But maybe its characters [are] just trying on

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Written & Directed by: Evan GlodellFull credits at IMDb"Propane is for pussies." So declares a character in the combustible Bellflower, which is fueled by blood, fire, whiskey and diesel. In his feature debut, writer-director Evan Glodell roughens his dippy romantic banalities with a post-apocalyptic aesthetic. (Because break-ups and doomsdays share that "end of the world" feeling.) Bellflower

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-29251073813257632782011-08-05T10:57:00.004-05:002011-08-05T11:04:34.711-05:00

Directed by: Rupert WyattWritten by: Rick Jaffa & Amanda SilverFull credits at IMDbI came into this pretty intrigued by what I assumed had to be a necessarily unhappy ending, just like Revenge of the Sith couldn't end well. As a franchise-rebooting prequel to 1968's Planet of the Apes (and not 2005's Franco-directed The Ape), which famously ends with the revelation that the earth's human

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-16240546289992127682011-08-05T10:48:00.004-05:002011-08-05T10:57:49.167-05:00

Directed by: Jon FavreauWritten by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Hank OstbyFull credits at IMDbCowboys & Aliens...lampoons the Western's archetypes, including in this case a man with no name, his unlikely pairing with a headstrong woman, a preacher with a taste for drink, a spoiled scion, local corruption, a coming railroad, and the exoticized Injun, with his

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-16743329161424124802011-07-21T12:13:00.003-05:002011-07-21T12:18:13.305-05:00

Directed by: Lee TamahoriWritten by: Michael ThomasFull credits at IMDbUday Hussein and his body double Latif make a strange couple: in The Devil's Double, a smart and ontologically complex gangster movie, they represent the duality of man, the clash of id and ego, even the realization of Narcissus's longing. Indeed, Latif's tragedy is like that of the clone, who tries to assume another's

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-26616517440606396632011-07-21T12:05:00.003-05:002011-07-21T12:12:34.989-05:00

Directed by: David YatesWritten by: Steve KlovesFull credits at IMDbJust two weeks ago I was saying that all American disaster movies exploit 9/11 imagery because it's our most visceral shared-iconography? Well, it's telling how very British the Harry Potter series is, that when it comes time for its own war to define a generation—equivalent to Autobots vs. Decepticons—it doesn't play off of

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Directed by: Seth GordonWritten by: Michael Markowitz and John Francis Daley, and Jonathan GoldsteinFull credits at IMDbHey, wouldn't this have been a million times better if it had been about kids trying to kill their teachers? Imagine, it's called Bad Teachers (oh, wait), and instead of a sexy dentist you have an assaultive nun, etc. etc. I mean, these characters were just little kids in

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-6224375376455718292011-07-21T11:50:00.003-05:002011-07-21T11:56:13.274-05:00

Directed by: Michael BayWritten by: Ehren KrugerFull credits at IMDbThe Transformers franchise traditionally fetishizes automobiles, because it's literally "based on" a line of toy cars. But watching this third installment, I got the feeling that Michael Bay's feelings about cars have changed. The resurgent Decepticons far outnumber Autobots in Dark of the Moon; it's hard to make a movie that

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Written & Directed by: Brian A. MetcalfFull credits at IMDbBrian A. Metcalf is like one of those little dogs convinced it has a big dog's body. The writer-director's Fading of the Cries, a fun horror fantasy, feels like a blockbuster despite its indie budget, demonstrating the first-time feature-director's professional experience as a photographer, storyboarder, and visual effects supervisor on

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-72497299111770054462011-07-21T11:35:00.003-05:002011-07-21T11:40:57.031-05:00

Directed by: John CarpenterWritten by: Michael & Shawn RasmussenFull credits at IMDbThirty years later, it looks like John Carpenter really wishes he'd helmed Halloween II; because time travel doesn't exist but Rob Zombie does, he has made John Carpenter's The Ward instead. Like Rick Rosenthal's underappreciated 1981 sequel to his slasher milestone, Carpenter's first feature in a decade is set in

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-43023628200678016492011-06-30T18:02:00.003-05:002011-06-30T18:06:40.596-05:00

Written & Directed by: Robert PersonsFull credits at IMDbGeneral Orders No. 9 is a rapturous ode to Georgia and a plaint for paradise lost—for what has been paved over and polluted, poisoned by the dissonance of urban asymmetry. In the first half, first time writer-director Robert Persons traces the state's (and country's?) evolution: "deer trail becomes Indian trail becomes county road"; the

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Directed by: John Lasseter & Brad Lewis Written by: Ben QueenFull credits at IMDbPixar's recent strategy has been to expand its audience by making movies for and about the new demographics that they wish to attract. Cartoons, especially well-made ones, will always draw kids and parents, but Up got grandparents to the theater, too; Toy Story 3 brought the young-adult millenials (older cousins?

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-86883651657337382372011-06-17T11:20:00.003-05:002011-06-17T11:25:52.448-05:00

Directed by: Miguel Ángel VivasWritten by: Miguel Ángel Vivas & Javier GarcíaFull credits at IMDbThere's virtuosity to admire and gratuitous violence to abhor in Kidnapped (Secuestrados), a punishing home-invasion thriller from Spain. The story begins with a well-off Madrid family that recently moved to a new house in a gated community. They squabble lovingly: mom (Ana Wagener) wants teenage

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-14391463124885412142011-06-17T11:14:00.002-05:002011-06-17T11:19:28.638-05:00

Directed by: Martin CampbellWritten by: Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim & Michael GoldenbergFull credits at IMDbThere's a UN parallel here, but only so this very conservative movie can bash that peacekeeper's lily liver. The US Army parallels are much more conspicuous. After all, it's called the Green Lantern Corps, which evokes the Marines, and that each member is a handpicked

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-4849736048979589812011-06-10T14:05:00.003-05:002011-06-10T14:11:09.663-05:00

By Apichatpong WeerasethakulLegends once preserved a culture's repressed memories. But in Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Primitive, an installation now at the New Museum (through July 2), that duty falls to cinema. In eight videos, the Thai master interviews a man who can recall his past lives, observes time-killing teens and then builds a spaceship with them; he watches that spaceship slowly rise

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Written & Directed by: J.J. AbramsFull credits at IMDb[There's] something elementally conservative here: the bad guys are the military, the good guys are the small-town sheriffs—it's federal vs. local, a "state's rights" kind of thing. But while the movie might promote small government, it also has a levelheaded attitude toward foreign policy. Its sympathy for the "monster," the alien held

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Directed by: Andrew RossiWritten by: Kate Novack & Andrew RossiFull credits at IMDbPrint is dying. But don't stop the presses because it's old news. It's also the subject of Page One, a documentary about media transformation reflexively told through the media desk at the New York Times. An overview of the troubled state of journalism today, the movie sums up arguments anyone with a passing

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-38755129889781936542011-06-10T12:52:00.003-05:002011-06-10T12:59:42.839-05:00

Directed by: Matthew VaughnWritten by: Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman & Matthew VaughnFull credits at IMDbJust like the old X-Men Saturday morning cartoon, the latest prequel in this hit-or-miss franchise uses "mutation" for allegories as broad as competing strands of American ideologies, and as narrow as puberty and sexual preference. You know me: I'm gonna start with the broad. X-Men

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-25184767300170108812011-06-10T12:43:00.003-05:002011-06-10T12:51:17.323-05:00

Directed by: Todd PhillipsWritten by: Craig Mazin, Scott Armstrong & Todd PhillipsThe most relieving thing about this sequel is that it's not so aligned with Phil (Bradley Cooper)'s point of view. And so even though it has liberal critic-baiting jokes about the size of Asian titties (and child prostitution), I felt pretty indifferent about The Hangover Part II. Must be because even the movie is

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-33185616049294303672011-05-25T12:15:00.003-05:002011-05-25T12:21:59.636-05:00

Written & Directed by: Jean-Luc GodardFull credits at IMDbCome take a Mediterranean cruise with Jean-Luc Godard and get 97 minutes of abstract and abstruse dialectics, which might be better enjoyed as a museum installation than as a feature film. Film Socialisme is a highbrow, non-narrative mash-up of aural and visual fragments both lofty and quotidian, in which all the usual mechanisms of cinema

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-52919081653025016932011-05-25T12:05:00.004-05:002011-05-25T12:13:09.132-05:00

Directed by: Radu MunteanWritten by: Alexandru Baciu, Radu Muntean & Razvan RadulescuFull credits at IMDbThe once Ceausescu-haunted Romanian New Wave is transcending its political origins, applying the movement’s aesthetic principles to stories with themes more universal. Director and cowriter Radu Muntean’s Tuesday, After Christmas—like Cristi Puiu’s Aurora, which also played at least year’s New

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-41259890427873168362011-05-23T16:45:00.005-05:002011-05-23T16:53:01.395-05:00

Directed by Julien LeclercqWritten by Julien Leclercq & Simon MoutairouFull credits at IMDbThe Assault (L'Assaut), with its gorgeous black-and-white recreations of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group's 1994 hijacking of an Air France flight, looks like a Tom Ford-directed documentary about terrorism. Director Leclercq suspensefully, sensationalistically cross-cuts between the government's backroom

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-83366191278351647552011-05-13T13:54:00.007-05:002011-05-23T16:35:55.465-05:00

Directed by: Wes CravenWritten by: Kevin Williamson & Ehren KrugerWes Craven is modern horror's grandpa: he helped establish the guidelines of the genre's post-Romero-reinvention with 1972's The Last House on the Left and, roughly a decade later, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Both of those films have been remade in the last several years, along with a slew of other horror classics. And so what

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-44531638240649845542011-05-13T13:00:00.004-05:002011-05-13T13:03:49.721-05:00

Directed by: Anthony BurnsWritten by: Anthony Burns, Brandon Freeman, Heath FreemanFull credits at IMDbSkateland, a pretty—and pretty conventional!—coming-of-age story, takes place when the 70s became the 80s, a nationally transformative era that director and co-writer Burns reduces to a time of personal upheaval: Ritchie (Shiloh Fernandez), the manager of the titular roller rink and "a writer,"

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-87272353226371029772011-05-13T12:53:00.003-05:002011-05-13T12:58:42.839-05:00

Directed by: Kenneth BranaghWritten by: Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz & Don PayneFull credits at IMDbThor has a respectable pedigree, of a level we don't usually see in these popcorn pushers—from America's favorite Shakespearean, Kenneth Brannagh, in the director's chair to our best actress, the ubiquitous, Academy Award-winning Natalie Portman, in the co-starring, love-interest role. (Her

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-59172127861219965212011-05-09T13:46:00.002-05:002011-05-09T13:54:35.746-05:00

Written & Directed by: Panos CosmatosFull credits at IMDbMescaline-mystical mindfuck Beyond the Black Rainbow could announce a new subgenre: glacial horror. The movie has the booming synths of a John Carpenter score and the primary-color lighting scheme of some Dario Argento classics. But this dystopic, retro-headed science-fiction film—characters in the credits include "mutant" and "sentionaut"—

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-45840515334704937812011-04-27T10:59:00.002-05:002011-04-27T11:05:32.495-05:00

Directed by: Jason EisenerWritten by: John DaviesFull credits at IMDbAdapted from the winner of Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse trailers contest, Hobo with a Shotgun is the second feature, after Machete, based on the phony previews that split Rodriguez's and Tarantino's films in theaters. This one's a pathological valentine to movies, and a disgusted rebuke of non-cinematic showmanship and

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-1823120887664047892011-04-27T10:45:00.003-05:002011-04-27T10:58:35.485-05:00

Directed by: Mark RuffaloWritten by: Christopher ThorntonFull credits at IMDbA cautionary tale against mixing church and rock n' roll, Mark Ruffalo's directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious, concerns paraplegic DJ Delicious Dean (Christopher Thornton, who also wrote the screenplay and has a broken back in real life), gifted not just in his legendary scratching skills but in his divine healing

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-89302115506788067522011-04-27T10:37:00.003-05:002011-04-27T10:43:44.645-05:00

Directed by: Mateo GilWritten by: Miguel BarrosFull credits at IMDbNothing strips the romance from a Western quite like Butch Cassidy showing up at a bank to make a withdrawal from his savings account. That's one of the earliest scenes in the weary, melancholic and elegiac Blackthorn, which revisits the Cassidy and Sundance myth and rewrites a new last act for George Roy Hill's classic: instead

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-21191566750676568662011-04-27T10:33:00.004-05:002011-04-27T10:36:21.198-05:00

Written & Directed by: Philip GelattFull credits at IMDbWould-be thriller The Bleeding House centers on a peculiar family, The Smiths, who bear spooky suggestions of bygone infamy: their knife drawer is padlocked; they have a strict, panic-provoking rule against pets; and, when the father sees his wife in an apron splashed with red stains, he freaks. "It's just paint," she assures him. This is a

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-62849927189251726722011-04-27T10:27:00.003-05:002011-04-27T10:31:30.307-05:00

Written & Directed by: The Vicious BrothersFull credits at IMDbThe abandoned mental institution-compound that provides the setting for Grave Encounters, a haunted hospital horror head-scratcher, is not merely possessed in the traditional sense. Yes, monstrous spirits do eventually appear, terrorizing and picking off our cast of heroes. But the buildings themselves seem alive—the characters become

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-44663401570728473322011-04-21T12:04:00.004-05:002011-04-21T12:12:23.119-05:00

Directed by: Michael WinterbottomFull credits at IMDbMany of director Michael Winterbottom's movies blur the line between the fictional and the real; those that do can be divided into two categories: politically charged, human-scaled dramas about the Middle East (The Road to Guantanamo, In This World, A Mighty Heart) and artsy larks with Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People, Tristram Shandy).

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-13569086225302192312011-04-21T11:57:00.004-05:002011-04-21T12:12:55.939-05:00

Written & Directed by: Aharon Keshales & Navot PapushadoFull credits at IMDbThe first horror movie out of Israel, Rabies (Kalevet) feels like a typical slasher with one teensy twist—its baddie is neutralized within the first few minutes. That psychokiller, setting traps in the woods to snag his mortal quarry, is shot with a tranquilizer, and spends the rest of the film asleep on the forest floor.

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-70382612811805414402011-04-21T11:49:00.005-05:002011-04-21T12:13:35.396-05:00

Directed by: Jim MickleWritten by: Nick Damici & Jim MickleFull credits at IMDbStrangely libertarian and pro-Canada, horror-road movie Stake Land boasts the stock archetypes and mythic aspirations common to comic books, but filtered through the unsmiling misery of realism—a glaring tonal disconnect that makes the movie silly, but witless. It's set in a post-apocalyptic America overrun with

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-9353660075879073252011-04-07T10:07:00.003-05:002011-04-07T10:13:25.234-05:00

Directed by: Michael GreenspanWritten by: Christopher DoddTrapping a character in one place is a challenge for so mobile a medium as movies. Danny Boyle met it recently with kinetic frenzy, swamping 127 Hours' pinned protagonist with flashbacks, fantasies and videocam confessions. In Rodrigo Cortés' Buried, Ryan Reynolds awakes in a coffin with nothing but a lighter, a cell phone, and a

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-19995166147985716172011-04-07T09:59:00.003-05:002011-04-07T10:05:30.519-05:00

Directed by: James WanWritten by: Leigh WhannellThe writer and director of the original Saw and the producing team behind Paranormal Activity make strange bedfellows: in 2004, the former introduced the buckets-of-blood aesthetic that would define horror for the rest of the decade; the latter represent the most successful rejection of that trend, scaring audiences with little more than flickering

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-24264311747614685922011-03-30T12:34:00.003-05:002011-03-30T12:38:53.288-05:00

Directed by: Duncan JonesWritten by: Ben RipleyFull credits at IMDbA gripping and gooey sci-fi thriller about fate, do-overs, and not sweating the small stuff, Source Code is like Groundhog Day, if it had been written during the War on Terror by Philip K. Dick. Using the titular technology, the U.S. military sends the consciousness of helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) into the

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-88422659830771000922011-03-29T15:11:00.004-05:002011-03-29T15:17:55.488-05:00

Written & Directed by: Matthew PorterfieldFull credits at IMDbPutty Hill revolves around, but is not about, the death by overdose of a 24-year-old; the movie doesn't engage with such sensational plots: a group of teens in the woods stumbles across federal marshals hunting a bank robber, and they just laugh and walk away. Instead, writer-director Matthew Porterfield looks in on the lives of those

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-10167882836949951272011-03-25T12:18:00.003-05:002011-03-25T12:32:18.056-05:00

Written & Directed by: John GrayFull credits from IMDbEarly in White Irish Drinkers, a Brooklyn-set bildungsfilm soaked in beer and coming-of-age cliches, a couple of Travolta-dressed slicks wander into an Irish bar. "Go back to Bensonhurst," the bartender tells them, "you disco fucks." Though it shares its setting—Bay Ridge, 1970s—with Saturday Night Fever, Drinkers feels a subway stop away from

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-79587215974183632642011-03-25T12:08:00.004-05:002011-03-25T12:18:00.334-05:00

Directed by: Christopher MorrisWritten by: Christopher Morris, with Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Simon BlackwellFull credits at IMDbThe conceptually ballsy Four Lions is a very funny movie...about terrorism! It's centered on an English cell of disaffected young men with radical Mujahideen tendencies, plotting to suicide-bomb London. Director Morris humanizes them by positing them as familiar

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-89079462443650882882011-03-09T17:51:00.003-05:002011-03-09T17:58:50.512-05:00

Directed by: Christopher SmithWritten by: Dario PoloniFull credits at IMDbFor once, it's not really about the journey—it's the getting there that counts. In Black Death, Christopher Smith's medieval road movie, a rogue's gallery of papally sanctioned Glourious Basterds travel through a bubo-scarred hellscape to a village untouched by plague, either to learn their secret cure or to slaughter them

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-9297821020346143032011-03-09T17:43:00.003-05:002011-03-09T17:49:21.639-05:00

Directed by: Benoît JacquotWritten by: Julien Boivent & Benoît JacquotFull credits at IMDbThe title (Au Fond Des Bois) refers not only to a physical position, but also a psycho-spiritual condition: this peculiar road movie-courtroom drama is often set on the back trails of rural 19th Century France—it meanders through isolated villages like Xena stripped of kitsch—but also features characters

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-15132980554910378072011-02-28T18:29:00.003-05:002011-02-28T18:35:26.091-05:00

Written & Directed by: Aaron KatzFull credits at IMDbLife is boring in Cold Weather—but art? Art's a gas! Doug (Cris Lankenau) lives in gray and rainy Portland, works in an ice factory (about as exciting as in a box factory), and rooms with his sister, Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn); the most fun they have is going whale watching in the rain and not seeing any whales. They live in a quiet city, whose

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-18593799756426865722011-02-28T18:13:00.003-05:002011-02-28T18:24:12.785-05:00

Directed by: Kim Ji-woonWritten by: Park Hoon-jungFull credits at IMDbI Saw the Devil, a proudly in-poor-taste thriller about predators playing with their food, opens on a serial killer who's a methodical madman—not unlike, you might say, the filmmakers, who plot their first act with the propulsive precision of expert pulp novelists; think Jim Thompson, or even Cormac McCarthy. The movie's first

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-14541633474222496652011-02-28T18:09:00.003-05:002011-02-28T18:13:30.277-05:00

I'm inclined to think cynically of Oscar voters, so I expect the very worst of the nominees will take the prize. So, how could the cute kids of Strangers No More lose? Except maybe even Oscar voters will see through this unbearable schmaltz. I think Warriors is too generic to stir significant support (pollution? yawn! in China? double yawn!); maybe if its cameras had actually been around for when

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-6370247309998412802011-02-16T16:03:00.003-05:002011-02-16T16:12:48.683-05:00

Written & Directed by: Jorge Michel GrauFull credits at IMDbWe Are What We Are (Somos Lo Que Hay), a gory and somber horror movie, reargrounds its genre and advances its characters to the fore. In general, a laudable approach: forming an affinity for the victims—or even, as here, the killers—is what makes the merely grisly truly frightening. Scary movies depend on sympathy. But as sci-fi slog

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-12448308087035826182011-02-16T15:55:00.004-05:002011-02-16T16:01:59.882-05:00

Directed by: Brad AndersonWritten by: Anthony JaswinskiFull credits at IMDbHorror's underlying phobia, the fear of the unlighted, is made literal in this solemn, Shyamalanian scarer: it's not what might be hiding in the shadows that threatens to devour the movie's apocalypse-survivors, but darkness itself. (Yes, this premise is very similar to a Dr. Who episode.) As the latest horror movie that

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-50562092491292699972011-02-11T16:15:00.001-05:002011-02-16T16:21:26.756-05:00

The Oscar-nominated animated shorts program sports fewer unifying threads than [do the] live action shorts. But that's not to say they don't speak to each other. So let me take these in twos, and start by talking about Wall-E. That Pixar feature sported two thematic strains that some critics suggested were in opposition (I disagreed): a fierce environmentalism and a love of cultural ephemera.

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-35559356563567722292011-02-09T16:57:00.003-05:002011-02-09T17:04:31.407-05:00

Written & Directed by: Bryan PoyserFull credits at IMDbLovers of Hate, a cleverly structured and perfectly plotted comic-bummer, takes familiar types and jostles them into unfamiliar places. The movie borrows the old fraternal-foils formula: Rudy (Chris Doubek) can't hold a job, lives out his car, showers in a car-wash and pines for (and perpetually pesters) his ex-wife, Diana (Heather Kafka).

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-8155520672996161162011-02-08T16:53:00.003-05:002011-02-08T16:59:07.620-05:00

The whole shorts package is fascinating because it offers glimpses of what appeals to the Academy—but, succinctly, in miniature. Like, in "Na Wewe" (my second fave of the lot), you have the Rwandan genocide (Hotel Rwanda), treated with a soft touch of absurdist levity (Life is Beautiful). Rwanda '94 is practically Poland '39 (Schindler's List), as Oscars go! And the story embraces commonality,

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-42765019142835768822011-02-08T16:47:00.003-05:002011-02-08T16:52:10.263-05:00

Directed by: Alister GriersonWritten by: John Garvin & Andrew WightIt's set within alien-like terrain, often underwater, at the last frontier of earthly exploration: because it boasts so many of his hallmarks—the villain is the corporate underwriter!—you can see why James Cameron slapped his name onto Sanctum, as executive producer. (It even features an actress, Alice Parkinson, who uncannily

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-46505439035979343442011-01-31T13:44:00.003-05:002011-01-31T13:48:57.373-05:00

Directed by: Mikael HåfströmWritten by: Michael PetroniFull credits at IMDbThe small town in which The Rite opens looks like the Lowell of The Fighter—that is, like no one has invested in it (and, in particular, its signage) since 1973. That's the year at which the movie feels frozen in both aesthetic and essence: it's the year The Exorcist opened, and the year at which The Rite would like

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-21719698615852524152011-01-31T13:30:00.000-05:002011-01-31T13:56:09.015-05:00

Directed by: Tom HooperWritten by: David SeidlerFull credits at IMDbThe movie work[s] hard to make George VI seem American—or at least, sympathetic to America's awards-voting audiences. As a born and raised subject of Uncle Sam, I have a deep-seated disdain for monarchy. To help viewers like me feel sympathetic for ol' Bertie, then, the filmmakers try to posit monarchism as a form of malformed

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-51756818410669163082011-01-26T16:35:00.004-05:002011-01-26T16:44:08.440-05:00

Directed by: Danny BoyleWritten by: Danny Boyle & Simon BeaufoyFull credits at IMDbYou know what I saw in 127 Hours? An Iraq War allegory! The crazy part is I'm totally serious. I mean, c'mon, it takes place in a desert, in April 2003 (roughly six weeks after George Bush Jr.'s invasion of Iraq began) and is basically a story about American arrogance getting its due: like Donald Rumsfeld and

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Written & Directed by: Vladan NikolicFull credits at IMDbThis narrated-to-death dystopian sci-fi takes place in 2044, when genetically engineered happiness has turned into numbness, and people pay a premium just to feel pain. But it also frequently flashes back to prelapsarian times, in which a New World Order conspiracy is rantingly outlined on video cassette--rather, on a series of tapes hunted

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-26701578607028288362011-01-26T16:12:00.004-05:002011-01-26T16:17:30.566-05:00

Written & Directed by: Gregg ArakiFull credits at IMDbKaboom plays like a kitschy, queer-eyed spoof of Donnie Darko, so much so that, following the lead of Friedberg-Seltzer, you could call it Richard Kelly Movie. By day, Araki's flick is campy and brightly colored, like a college-campus comedy; by night, it adopts the steely pallor of a Platinum Dunes slasher. The mix is, uh, awkward--like a

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-14213667444274424412011-01-19T15:46:00.003-05:002011-01-19T15:50:34.933-05:00

Directed by: Lawrence Michael LevineWritten by: Lawrence Michael Levine & Kate KirtzFull credits at IMDbGabi on the Roof in July, winner of best narrative feature at last year's Brooklyn Film Festival, concerns a brother and sister who're like Mumblecore equivalents of Astaire and Rogers. As with characters in a classic musical, sans the song-and-dance, their flaws and strengths are complementary

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-51887238933453244112011-01-19T15:39:00.004-05:002011-01-19T15:45:13.814-05:00

Written & Directed by: Im Sang-sooFull credits at IMDbThe charge most often leveled at the director of Oldboy, Park Chan-Wook, is that he's a vapid stylist. He's not the only one! The Housemaid, the latest from Park's South Korean compatriot and fellow Seoul native, Im Sang-soo, is spiffy, sexy and super-shallow, a far cry from its politically scathing original. In that 1960 film, directed by Kim

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-21441689721778176052011-01-19T15:31:00.004-05:002011-01-19T15:38:10.968-05:00

Written & Directed by: Ethan & Joel CoenFull credits at IMDbTrue Grit visits, at its very end, a Wild West show ca. 1903, where frontier life is, after just a few decades, already a joke—a commercialized circus. But we don't have to wait that long to see such a thing: this whole fucking movie plays the Wild West for cheap yuks. I guess what I mean is, the Coen Bros. are back to their old shit

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-10563059146114682872011-01-07T13:49:00.004-05:002011-01-07T13:54:30.699-05:00

Directed by: Alejandro González IñárrituWritten by: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Armando Bo & Nicolás GiacoboneFull credits at IMDbBiutiful—whose intentional misspelling is about as clever as The Pursuit of Happyness'—is set in a dirty, dingily lit city of hustlers and homeless, a world of exposed pipes and peeling paint. But I wasn't impressed by its true grit; it struck me instead as

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-75482398926616834602011-01-07T12:18:00.003-05:002011-01-07T13:47:16.913-05:00

Directed by: Dominic SenaWritten by: Bragi F. SchutFull credits at IMDbIn Season of the Witch, a team of Crusades-deserters, hangers-on and a priest literally stop The Black Death with just their swords, a Latin prayer book and their shaken-but-restored faith in God. But really, it's a movie about whether we should try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in civilian court. When the movie opens, Nicolas Cage

Cinepinionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06751125115213060127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4241126270978318478.post-70418396829371093272010-12-31T12:37:00.004-05:002010-12-31T12:58:35.545-05:00

Directed by: John CurranWritten by: Angus MacLachlanFull credits at IMDbThe cynical Stone is set-up like those neo-noirs John Dahl used to make in the 90s, except it’s stripped of any and all urgency. It does, though, retain the high-minded pretension toward something more meaningful that you’d get from, say, The Last Seduction. In this case, it’s an exploration of sin—its roots and its costs,

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