Born and Bred Review
By valuing the complexity of individuals' stories over superficial competition drama, Born and Bred bucks the unwelcome nonfiction trend fostered by S...
View ArticleConnected Review
Connected opens with director Tiffany Shlain confessing to cell phone addiction, a focus on herself that's indicative of this documentary, which conce...
View ArticleThe Way Review
The Way might lack the Chicken Soup for the Soul imprimatur, but writer/director Emilio Estevez's travelogue tale of fathers and sons (starring his ow...
View ArticleFireflies in the Garden Review
Familial dysfunction takes glib, syrupy form in Fireflies in the Garden, a flashbacky saga of past discord and present-day reconciliation that should ...
View ArticleKawasaki's Rose (Kawasakiho ruze) Review
Kawasaki's Rose pivots around a long-suppressed bombshell, yet there's little overblown spectacle to Polish filmmaker Jan Hrebejk's graceful drama abo...
View ArticleChalet Girl Review
Hot Dog… The Movie and its disreputable ski-comedy ilk might have been a low point in cinema history, but at least their unbridled crassness ha...
View ArticleThe Catechism Cataclysm Review
Taking the notion of toilet humor literally but incapable of delivering its promised religious satire, The Catechism Cataclysm is more muddled than it...
View ArticleJack and Jill Review
Al Pacino romantically pursuing a cross-dressing Adam Sandler around a medieval castle should be stunningly surreal, so it's a not-inconsiderable fail...
View ArticleINCENDIARY: The Willingham Case Review
Conservative Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry comes across as the poster child for unjust death-penalty fanaticism in Incendiary: Th...
View ArticleKnuckle Review
Making UFC brawlers seem decidedly dainty by comparison, Ireland's Quinn McDonagh clan has for decades engaged in bare-knuckle brawls with rival famil...
View ArticleBad Fever Review
King of Comedy: Filmmaker Kentucker Audley stars in '70s-flavored Bad Fever The shaky handheld cinematography might be conventionally modern, but from...
View ArticleRed Hook Summer Review: Spike Lee Returns to the Brooklyn Panorama
Spike Lee returns to the Brooklyn neighborhoods of his most famous works — including his celebrated Do the Right Thing — with Red Hook Sum...
View ArticleWhy Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning's John Hyams Could Be Our Best Action...
If David Cronenberg and Luc Besson had a mutant baby, it still wouldn't be able to make a movie quite as hypnotically badass as Universal Soldier: Day...
View ArticleOscar-Nominated Shorts 2013: From a Simpsons Segment to a Woman Who Lives on...
There's scant dialogue but plenty of eloquent storytelling in the five animated short films up for a 2013 Oscar, all of which — along with their...
View ArticleStoker Review: In the Hotly Anticipated Sundance Film, Girlhood Blooms Into...
Puberty is sex and sex is murder in Stoker, a Hitchcockian stew of hothouse familial jealousy, sadism and psychosis all tied together by one teenage g...
View ArticleUwe Boll, Worst Director Alive, to Wall Street Execs: "Don't Think You're Safe"
Uwe Boll will no longer fight you -- at least, not with his fists. Often lambasted by critics as the worst of the worst, Boll once literally got into ...
View ArticleEthan Hawke, Before and After: Watching an Actor Grow Up
Before Midnight may be the greatest film ever made about impermanence -- a fitting theme for a work that also reestablishes the A-list credentials of ...
View ArticleAfter Auteur: How M. Night Shyamalan Became Just Another Director
Wait, you didn't know that After Earth, the Will Smith–Jaden Smith sci-fi adventure hitting theaters this weekend, is the latest from Shyamalan,...
View ArticleAfter 44 Years, Hollywood Is Finally Smart Enough to Make a Judy Blume Movie
Judy Blume's first novel, The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo, was published in 1969, yet it's only now, 44 years later, that the first big-sc...
View ArticleDisney TV Is Poisoning Your Daughters
I recognize that, even coming from a father of two preteen daughters, that headline might sound alarmist, so let me elaborate—the Disney Channel...
View ArticleAdam Sandler's Laziness: Why Nothing Changes in Movie After Movie
Adam Sandler is successful because he's lazy. Not lazy in the sense that he has no ambition, or doesn’t want to work hard to maintain his status...
View ArticleGrown Ups 2 Has No Real Plot to Speak of
Adam Sandler pats his own back for being loyal in Grown Ups 2, an excuse for the star to hang out with his friends while he plays a Hollywood bigwig w...
View ArticleGirl Most Likely, a Jersey-vs.-Manhattan Comedy
Less funny than her worst SNL sketch, Girl Most Likely strands Kristen Wiig in a dreadful, disingenuous city-versus-suburbs comedy that mercilessly mo...
View ArticleThe Act of Killing, 2013's First Masterpiece
More terrifying than any horror film, and more intellectually adventurous than just about any 2013 release so far, The Act of Killing is a major achie...
View ArticleMainstream Movie Porn Sucks: How Real Sex in Real Movies Is a Real Distraction
Porn reinserts itself into the arthouse with this week's The Canyons, co-starring adult-industry stud James Deen, and next week's Lovelace, a biopic o...
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