Despite a general indifference toward Tony Scott’s taut, but largely uninspired remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, this critic…
When Japanese director Yōjirō Takita’s Departures won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, upsetting perceived front runners from Israel (Waltz with Bashir) and…
Emotional revelations are a common motif throughout Bent Hamer’s filmography, whether it be discovering the significance of family in Eggs, the necessity of friendship in…
It’s the middle of the afternoon and I’m waiting in a theater sparsely populated with a dozen other strangers. Suddenly the lights dim, the curtains…
Until now, the critically acclaimed filmmaker Joe Wright has had an impressive career. In 2005, Wright moved from made-for-television productions like Charles II: The Power…
Hypnotic, elliptically opaque, and dreamlike, The Limits of Control may test the limits of Jarmusch fans calling themselves card-carrying Jarmusch fans. If Broken Flowers was…
Given the market’s desire for escapist films and an audience’s need to placate a media-induced fear of Mexico, the high profile Mexican film Rudo y…
There’s likely to be no better opening sequence in a film this year than the one found in Austrian director Gotz Spielmann’s fifth feature, Revanche.…
Sacha Gervasi’s tremendously funny, yet achingly painful, documentary chronicles the attempted resurgence of the titular ’80s metal also-rans. Anvil! The Story of Anvil is among…
Ramin Bahrani’s first two films, 2006’s Man Push Cart and 2008’s Chop Shop, wear the Iranian-American director’s neorealist influences proudly, and their release marked the…
It’s a pain to review omnibus films. To do so is to review (in this case at least) three separate features, weighing the hits and…
The Band’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” plays during the opening sequence of Jody Hill’s new black comedy, Observe and Report,…
Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre bests its Disneyfied cousin Slumdog Millionaire in nearly every way. Whereas Danny Boyle’s film is frenetically shot, frantically paced, and…
Following 2006’s Half Nelson, a convincing depiction of friendship between a 13-year-old and her crack-addict teacher (a role which Ryan Gosling won an Academy Award…
In 12, director Nikita Mikhalkov brings to fruition a project ten years in the making. The film is something of a re-imagining of Sidney Lumet’s…
Many of cinema’s most divisive filmmakers are accused of betraying the story they’re trying to tell by utilizing various stylistic affectations. Of course, this is…
Amy Adams is quite an actress. Excluding her forgettable role as the middle-nun in Doubt last year, Adams has turned in consistently compelling and nuanced…
Julia Roberts hasn’t been the centerpiece of a film since the moderate success Mona Lisa Smile six years ago. Distracted by kids, a new husband,…
“Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled,” so says John Milton (Comus I. 589), whose words resonate in…
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Three Monkeys, Turkey’s measured and quietly devastating 2009 Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, is a work in which every moody,…