Recent Stories
Celeste & Jesse Forever
Hot Pain: Best friends divorce in a Celeste & Jesse Forever story that finds charm wrapped in deep discomfort.
When women have meltdowns in the movies, the meltdowns rarely overstay their welcome. A box of tissues dispatched, a Ben & Jerry’s gorge, maybe a bottle of wine (but never more than one). “Keep it ...
To Rome With Love
Spaghetti Told Western: Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love roams aimlessly through the ancient city.
The original, more euphonious title for Woody Allen’s 42nd feature film was The Bop Decameron, but Allen changed course, he told an interviewer, when he realized the illiterate masses (I paraphrase) didn’t have a clue ...
Pina
Wim Wenders sets bodies to motion in celebration of famed dancer Pina Bausch.
At the time of her death in 2009, the German-born Pina Bausch was one of the most celebrated dancer/choreographers of her time – or any time. You won’t find that kind of biographical detail in ...
One Day
Time Warped: One Day struggles to fully capitalize on a clever concept – or does it?
Following the same template as the ingratiating source novel by David Nicholls (who also wrote the screenplay), One Day charts 20 years of a relationship’s ups and downs in one-day blips. Touching down on the ...
Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest
Hip-Hop History: Beats Rhymes & Life tracks the rise of Tribe Called Quest.
Actor turned first-time documentarian Michael Rapaport mostly keeps himself off camera in this admiring portrait of the seminal ’90s hip-hop outfit A Tribe Called Quest. But his voice – an upper-register whine that pitches even ...
Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is powerfully and beautifully bewildering.
After 2008’s conventionally plotted, over-praised The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky dives back into another competitive sport of sorts in the deliciously wackadoodle Black Swan. This drama-horror hybrid, set within a New York ballet company, strikes a ...
Never Let Me Go
Loose Grip: Never Let Me Go doesn’t seize its tremendous potential completely.
Early reaction to this filmed adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s undeniably under-the-skin (but a mite overpraised) Never Let Me Go seemed to share a same basic – very American, I think – complaint. (You should stop ...
Flipped
Rob Reiner revisits familiar coming of age territory in charming, if predictable, new flick.
That Flipped works at all is no small wonder, and if that sounds like a backhanded compliment, you’re right on the money. So is this: It’s Rob Reiner’s best film in a decade… but just ...
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Tattoo You: Second film adaptation of best-selling crime series is heavy on atmosphere, light on excitement.
“Played with fire” may be misleading, playfulness not being one of the leading characteristics of Lisbeth Salander, the black-leathered, dragon-tatted, hog-riding hacker – bisexual, to boot! – who has, almost improbably, beguiled an international legion ...
Greenberg
L.A. Story: Ben Stiller plays it straight in seriously told, dramatically successful tale of a losing loner.
Noah Baumbach’s very vocal critics have sneered that with Greenberg, the 40-year-old writer/director has made his first mumblecore movie, the lo-fi, DIY movement Baumbach has dabbled in recently (he produced Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last ...
