movie reviews
Terminator: Salvation
Terminator Salvation’s action sequences satiate the hungers both of explosion-craving, old school action aficionados and quick cut, first-person violence voyeurs of Generation X-Box.
Rudo y Cursi
It’s brother against brother for control over their destinies, in a film about soccer, Mexico, and the way we try to live our dreams.
Explicit Ills
Without people, a neighborhood would just be a bunch of buildings. Or so argues Explicit Ills, the directorial debut from actor Mark Webber, which weaves together four residents’ stories in a rough part of Philadelphia. The movie opens with snapshots of abandoned buildings, composed as poetic portraits of urban landscape, but like these exterior shots of the destitute Philadelphia neighborhood, the movie never really invites the viewer inside.
12
“You’ll be done in 20 minutes,” the bailiff tells the jury, who are responsible for deciding the fate of a Chechen kid who allegedly murdered his adoptive father, a Russian army officer. But at the last minute of what will be a unanimous guilty vote, one man slowly raises his hand to vote “not guilty.” With this act of defiance, the captivating story of 12 slowly opens like an origami rose in water.
Valkyrie
American film has never been nice to Nazis. Typically they are portrayed as psychotic megalomaniacs, dandy-ish stiffs, or anonymous henchmen. But in Valkyrie, Nazis get a new look.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
The Devil appears in many forms, and in the West African nation of Liberia, the Devil is Charles Taylor.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About his Father
When Andrew Bagby was killed on November 5th 2001, he left behind much more than his memory. Childhood friend and filmmaker Kurt Kuenne set out to create a loving documentary about Bagby that illustrated the life of his quirky friend for the child he left behind, Zachary. The result, Dear Zachary, is as an emotionally […]
A Christmas Tale (Un conte de noël)
A Christmas Tale (Un conte de noël)
The holidays are meant to be joyous occasions where families come together to rejoice in each other’s company—in theory, at least. In practice, families are far more bizarre than the outside world could ever know. The holidays can be a time of awkward encounters, airing of family drama, […]
Psycho
If America’s greatest art form is film, then Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is the Mona Lisa of horror. Arguably Hitchcock’s most watched work by contemporary audiences, Psycho connects with viewers on a visceral level seldom achieved by any film. The plot is deceptively simple. A woman (Janet Leigh) steals money from her work, goes on the […]
Forbidden Kingdom
In the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, the radical turtles find a magic scepter that accidentally transports the fearsome fighting team to 17th Century Japan. The turtles learn some important lessons about watered down Asian philosophies and make some snarky comments while kicking people in the face. In The Forbidden Kingdom, a kung fu […]
Sukiyaki Western Django
With his hat lowered and boots dusty, a lone drifter moseys through the dry brush of a Nevada town. Hand on his gun, he eyes down an unruly posse of hoodlums. The wind blows, shots ring out, and the violence begins. This may sound like a traditional Western, but for visionary (and hallucinatory) Japanese director […]
Battle in Seattle
In 1999, more than 40,000 people gathered in Seattle for one of the largest protests since the Vietnam War. Yet in today’s world of the seemingly endless Iraq War, collapsing economy, and the end of the American century, this monumental moment of collective action is largely forgotten. Until now, that is. Writer/director (and actor) Stuart […]
Brand Upon the Brain
Movies are the ultimate extension of dreams. In the short time from the title to the credits, a movie can take the viewer into an all-enveloping realm of the unknown. Brand Upon the Brain is Canadian director Guy Maddin’s hallucinatory reimagination of his own childhood. It is a dreamworld that blurs the edges between the […]
Red
The modern Western does not take place in West. Gone are the spurs and the horses, the dust and the six-shooter. Instead, these stories of revenge and justice play out in everyday situations, in the towns where we live and the landscapes we inhabit. Red brings the Western into the present with the compelling story […]
XXY (review)
XXY shares the life of Alex, a knobbly kneed, 15-year-old Argentine girl (Inés Efron) who is an unusual intersection of genders: her body is home to both male and female genitalia.
Blades Of Glory
Blades of Glory
Two dudes + ice skates = comic gold
By Drew Tewksbury
Metromix March 30, 2007
The phrase “great comedic pairs” may bring to mind Abbott and Costello, Sonny and Cher or even Bush and Cheney, but Ricky Bobby and Napoleon Dynamite? Fortunately, the inspired combination of Will Ferrell and Jon Heder creates an epic odd couple […]
