Early critical response to Joel and Ethan Coen’s True Grit, a faithful adaptation of Charles Portis’s western novel, has been mostly positive, yet many mask…
Boxing is a sport dependent on mental strategy, despite what its surface-level brutality suggests. In The Fighter, the physically tough but emotionally stricken welterweight boxer…
“Weapons are an extension of my body,” muses superstar terrorist Illich “Carlos” Ramirez Sanchez (Edgar Ramirez), signifying both the physical and mechanical prowess inherent to…
For French director Gaspar Noe, life and death are not physical certainties but evolving psychological perspectives that often overlap. His three feature films (I Stand…
The American dissects the emotional enigmas of those working in two of the oldest professions — assassins and prostitutes, respectively. Its cryptic characters depend on…
The stunning opening sequence of Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone immediately communicates a specific relationship between region and mood. The flawless voice-over narration and lingering…
The labyrinthine social hierarchies of David Fincher’s The Social Network facilitate a narrative pinball game; competing male egos, hidden agendas, brooding desires, and palpable anger…
Isolation is a universal theme, but it can also describe an intrinsically American experience of teenage angst. This contextual difference firmly separates Let the Right…
Troubled families rarely dissolve overnight. Instead, a slow erosive process corrodes pacts and compromises over weeks, months, and even years. Inevitably, each member becomes trapped…
Self-seriousness can mortally wound the work of a pulp filmmaker who depends on his flashy style. In the case of British director Neil Marshall, obvious…
Female cinematic incarnations have long played second fiddle to subjective male visions of lust, intoxication, and regret, collectively narrow interpretations that often disavow a woman’s…
Like a vengeful cornered beast, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising exhibits a desperate ferociousness during even its most lyrical moments. Set in 1000 AD amidst…
Ongoing military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq define the last decade of American foreign policy, not only for their historical representation of a shady Bush-era…
The parallels between Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated Inception form a fascinating Siamese twin. Overlapping themes of familial fissures and regret make up…
Even at the ripe old age of 88, Alain Resnais’s filmmaking engine seems to have an endless supply of creative fuel left. Like clockwork, Resnais…
Most films never expand past their 16:9 rectangular tombs, passively projecting until they inevitably fade to black. But a film like I Am Love transcends…
Mia Hansen-Løve wears many creative hats; actress, film critic, screenwriter, and director. After starring in two of fiancé Oliver Assayas’s films in her late teens,…
In wildly different ways, Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl and The Last Mistress envision the collective invasion of the female psyche by male oppressors. In both,…