Going 'Mental' And Enjoying The Ride
Mental is madder than madcap. I heard one critic sniff, "It's kind of broad"— and, Your Honor, the defense agrees! But if broad means "unsubtle," it doesn't have to mean "unreal."Mental makes most...
View ArticleTerrence Malick And Every Man's Journey 'To The Wonder'
The voiceovers from Terrence Malick's To the Wonder, which has a lot of them, are intoned on the soundtrack while the characters stare into sunrises or sunsets — whenever the light is right, what...
View ArticleTom Cruise's Latest Headed For 'Oblivion'
Transcript TERRY GROSS, HOST: In December, Tom Cruise starred as the title character in the film "Jack Reacher." In "Oblivion," which opened on Friday, he plays another Jack, one of few humans left on...
View ArticleTwo Indie Directors Go Confidently Mainstream
Studios are putting most of their eggs in $100 million baskets these days, even as American independent filmmakers go hungry from lack of mainstream attention. But two of my favorite American indie...
View Article'Iron Man 3': Tony Stark As Homebrew Hero
The third time might be the charm for some things, but the number three after a movie title is typically shorthand for a deal with the devil.The studio thinks there's more money to be squeezed from a...
View Article'Into Darkness,' Boldly And With A Few Twists
Before I tell you about J.J. Abrams' second Star Trek film, with its youngish new Starship Enterprise crew, let me say that just because I've seen every episode of the original StarTrek and of The Next...
View ArticleTwo New Stories With A New-Wave Vibe
Lately I've been re-watching vintage Truffaut movies, and I've been struck by the resurgent influence on American independent films of the French New Wave of the late '50s and '60s.The Truffaut...
View ArticleRediscover Your Inner Anarchist In The Anti-Corporate 'East'
The second collaboration between writer-director Zal Batmanglij and actress and co-writer Brit Marling is called The East, which happens to be the name of the movie's anti-corporate terrorist cult....
View ArticleWhedon's Touch Finds A Match With 'Much Ado'
One word sums up my reaction to Joss Whedon's film of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing: Huzzah!Here is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer— and the director of The Avengers— working with...
View ArticleTwo Master Moviemakers, Two Singularly Fine Films
The decade of the 1980s — when major corporations made their presence more felt in Hollywood — was for all kinds of reasons a low point in American moviegoing.
View Article'The Lone Ranger': Summer Fun With Manifest Destiny
We're at the point when Johnny Depp's dumbest whims can lead to movies costing $200 million. I imagine Depp lying in a hammock on his private island and saying, "I've always wanted to play Barnabas...
View ArticleIntroducing Oscar Grant, The Man Behind The Headlines
The actor Michael B. Jordan gives a major performance in Ryan Coogler's debut film, Fruitvale Station. He plays 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot in a run-in with cops at an Oakland, Calif., train...
View ArticleTwo Documentaries Examine Violence, Human And Animal
Two documentaries, Blackfish and The Act of Killing, are making waves around the world.
View Article'Blue' Rhapsodies: Woody Allen, In Need Of New Tricks
Another year, another Woody Allen picture, and few agree on whether that's a good thing. For some, he hasn't made an interesting film since Husbands and Wives, maybe even Hannah and Her Sisters. Others...
View ArticleA Good Girl And A Lost Boy, Looking For A Way Forward
The teen romance The Spectacular Now is by turns goofy, exhilarating, and unreasonably sad — just like being a teenager.It centers on a fast-talking, hard-drinking high school party animal named Sutter...
View ArticleA Future Where Class Warfare Is Much More Than A Metaphor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g1sruo3ViEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9rS-x4aT5w
View ArticleBoozy Bromance 'World's End' Rises Above Its Lowbrow Tactics
The World's End is a world-shaking, genre-bending, sci-fi comedy, and a splendid capper to what British writer-director Edgar Wright and actor-writer Simon Pegg call their "Cornetto trilogy," for an...
View ArticleReaching Across What's Broken, 'Short Term' Fix Or No
It's easy to make fun of a certain kind of therapeutic language — the kind you hear all through the movie Short Term 12.That title comes from the name of a group home for abused and/or unstable teens....
View ArticleGandolfini Is So Vivid In 'Enough Said,' You Forget He's Gone
Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said is her most conventional comedy since her 1996 debut, Walking and Talking. I don't love it as much as her scattershot ensemble movies Friends With Money and Please Give,...
View ArticleGordon-Levitt's 'Don Jon' Is An Openhearted Directorial Debut
In phe last decade, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has worked hard to establish himself as a serious actor, and he's been so successful it's easy to forget he came of age in the '90s sitcom 3rd Rock from the...
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