The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band) Review
Release Date: Dec. 30 (limited) Director: Michael Haneke Writer: Michael Haneke Starring: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leoni Benesch Studio: X-Filme Creative Pool. 144 minutes Sometimes evil is black and white The White Ribbon looks deceptively familiar—like an old Twilight Zone episode, or one of those late-night films discovered while channel-surfing. But Michael Haneke’s seemingly simple, black-and-white story—set in a German village just before the start of World War I—is a step above and a grade darker than your average whodunit.... read more
Paris, Texas Review
DVD Release Date: Jan. 26 Director: Wim Wenders Writer: Sam Shepard, L.M. Kit Carson Cinematographer: Robby Müller Starring: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell Studio/Run Time: Criterion Collection, 147 mins. Cinematic masterpiece reminds of Wenders’ bleak, unique vision of America “You look like 40 miles of rough road,” esteems Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell) after picking up his estranged brother in a Texas border town. That rutted, haggard visage belongs to Harry Dean Stanton’s Travis Henderson, who has stumbled out of the desert after abandoning his family four years earlier.... read more
Review: Nobuhiko Obayashi's HOUSE
HOUSE Release Date: Jan. 15 (New York) Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi Writers: Chiho Katsura, Chigumi Obayashi Starring: Kimiko Ikegami, Yoko Minamida Cinematographer: Yoshitaka Sakamoto Studio/Run Time: Janus Films. 87 minutes Japanese cult classic finally gets its due.... read more
Crazy Heart Review
Release Date: Dec. 16 Director: Scott Cooper Writer: Thomas Cobb (novel), Cooper (screenplay) Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal Cinematographer: Barry Markowitz Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures Jeff Bridges’ performance as country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart arrives with “preordained best actor frontrunner” written all over it, thanks to the pundits whose business it is to phone the two or three Academy members they know every five minutes and keep us abreast of the shifting breezes in Bel Air. This kind of attention is both blessing and curse: Blessing in that it’ll actually draw a significant audience to a modest “music... read more
Fish Tank Review
Cannes favorite Fish Tank drops into the world of the British lower class with an attempt at... read more
Sweetgrass Review
Release Date: Jan. 6 Starring: Lawrence Allested, Pat Connolly, John Ahern and 3,000 sheep. Cinematographer: Lucien Castaing-Taylor Studio/Run Time: Cinema Guild, 105 mins. Documentarians are cinematic gluttons for mutton.... read more
Police, Adjective Review
Release Date: Dec. 23 Director: Corneliu Porumboiu Writer: Porumboiu Starring: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov Cinematographer: Marius Panduru Studio/Run Time: IFC Films, 113 mins.... read more
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Review
While James Cameron recently spent $250 million for the technical wizardry to create a cinematic experience like we’ve never seen before, Terry Gilliam spent about a tenth of that amount on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and created a world we’d never imagine. Cameron’s plot was compelling but conventional; Gilliam’s was compelling, anything but conventional and eventually frustrating.... read more
Avatar Review
Never before have so many cynics wanted to hate a movie, and never have they been so thoroughly thwarted, as with James Cameron’s Avatar. I had more than my share of doubts going into the screening. While Titanic was not without its merits, it hardly left me waiting with baited breath for the next Cameron epic. The years of promises about a groundbreaking movie were tiresome. Surely he had “King of the World” syndrome, a megalomania that pushed him to pursue record-breaking budgets as an end to themselves. Then, the Avatar trailer was released. I joined most of the movie-going... read more
Up in the Air
Release Date: Dec. 4 (limited), Dec. 25 (wide) Director: Jason Reitman Writers: Sheldon Turner, Reitman (novel by Walter Kim) Starring: George Clooney, Jason Bateman, Anna Kendrick, Vera Farmiga Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg Studio/Run Time: Paramount Pictures, 109 mins. Despite some fine acting, young director’s third film is uneven and formulaic Jason Reitman has only made three feature films, but his work is already falling into familiar patterns. His first two films, Thank You for Smoking and Juno, were slickly produced, but the surface niceties were bolstered by sharp satire in the former and heartfelt emotion in the latter. His third,... read more
The Young Victoria
Release Date: Dec. 18 (limited) Director: Jean-Marc Vallée Writer: Julian Fellowes Cinematographer: Hagen Bogdanski Starring: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Jim Broadbent, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson Studio/Run Time: Sony Pictures Entertainment, 100 mins. Blunt dazzles as British royalty in well-executed period piece She was the snooty girl in The Devil Wears Prada, the hot date in Dan in Real Life, the funny sister in Sunshine Cleaning and the alluring daughter in Charlie Wilson’s War. Now Emily Blunt steps into her first major leading role, dazzling and delighting in period piece The Young Victoria. Mostly set in the 1830s and ’40s,... read more
That Evening Sun
Release Date: In Theaters Now Director: Scott Teems Writers: Teems, (short story by William Gay) Cinematographer: Rodney Taylor Starring: Hal Holbrook, Raymond McKinnon, Carrie Preston, Mia Wasikowska, Walton Goggins, Barry Corbin Studio/Run Time: Freestyle Releasing, 110 mins. Holbrook’s crowning moment comes in truly Southern film Scott Teems’ That Evening Sun is an exquisitely crafted adaptation of a William Gay short story that’s fundamentally rooted in the real-world South, a subtle little wonder in which every single element works. Music from Michael Penn and Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood sets the portentous mood; character actors Raymond McKinnon, Walton Goggins and Barry... read more
The General
Blu-ray Release: Nov. 10 Director/Writers: Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman Starring: Keaton, Marion Mack, Jim Farley, Charles Henry Smith Studio/Run Time: Kino International, 78 mins. A true classic The irony of Buster Keaton’s The General being the first silent feature to be released in America on Blu-ray is that—despite its current status in the pantheon of film classics—it initially bombed. And not just with audiences. It was also critically reviled for its inconsistent tone and lack of plot, not to mention Keaton’s performance.... read more
The Road
Director: John Hillcoat Writers: Joe Penhall, (novel by Cormac McCarthy) Cinematographer: Javier Aguirresarobe Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Studio/Run Time: Dimension Films, 113 mins. Faithful adaptation paves way for heartrending performances Within the first 15 minutes of The Road, Viggo Mortensen’s nameless survivor finds himself defending his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) from a pedophilic cannibal, then washing said predator’s splattered brains from the boy’s hair. This combination of unflinching brutality and father-of-the-year tenderness lies at the heart of the latest film inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s apocaliterature, and the result is a victory in every sense.... read more
Me and Orson Welles
Release Date: Nov. 25 (limited) Director: Richard Linklater Writers: Holly Gent Palmo, Vince Palmo Jr. (novel by Robert Kaplow) Starring: Christian McKay, Claire Danes, Zac Efron Cinematographer: Dick Pope Studio/Run Time: Freestyle Releasing, 113 mins. Newcomer upstages teen heartthrob in Richard Linklater’s latest Zac Efron is ostensibly the star of Me and Orson Welles—he has the biggest name, at least, thanks to his role in High School Musical. But he plays the nondescript pronoun in the film’s title, not the bigger-than-life dynamo who wraps pre-war New York City around his little finger. That role belongs to little-known Christian McKay,... read more
Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos)
Release Date: Nov. 20 (New York) Director/Writer: Pedro Almodóvar Starring: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo Run Time: 128 mins. Celebrated director explores life through movies Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film is an anthology of his previous obsessions—its haunting score (courtesy of long-time collaborator Alberto Iglesias) and deep hues evoke the melodramatic aesthetic that has defined his work since 1997’s Live Flesh. This is a movie about seeing and being seen, a fact that is evident from the dazzling opening sequence that begins with a close-up of a woman’s eye, in which you can see the reflection of a newspaper.... read more
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Release Date: Nov. 27 (limited) Director/Writer: Rebecca MillerCinematographer: Declan Quinn Starring: Alan Arkin, Robin Wright Penn, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Maria Bello, Blake Lively Studio/Run Time: Screen Media Films/98 mins. In The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller adapts her own novel of the same name in order to tell the overly melodramatic story of its title character’s life. As she’s grown older, Lee and her husband have slowly been breaking down but in order to understand Lee’s current situation, we have to start at the very beginning of her life and learn about what it’s... read more
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Release Date: November 25, 2009 Director: Wes Anderson Writer: Roald Dahl (novel), Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach (screenplay) Starring: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Jason Schwartzman, Brian Cox, Michael Gambon, Anjelica Huston Studio/Run Time: Twentieth Century Fox, 87 min. Wes Anderson’s whimsical animated film features his familiar themes and undeniable fingerprints, but has broader-than-usual appeal.... read more
Fight Club (10th Anniversary Edition)
Release Date: Nov. 17 Director: David Fincher Writers: Jim Uhls, Chuck Palahniuk Cinematographer: Jeff Cronenweth Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter Studio/Run Time: Twentieth Century Fox, 139 mins. A beautiful and unique snowflake David Fincher’s film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club doesn’t tell us anything about consumerism that we don’t already know. That’s exactly why it’s a stunning piece of cinema, and a searing indictment of a society wandering a labyrinth of material comfort and spiritual discontent.... read more
Red Cliff
Release Date: Oct. 16 Director: John Woo Writers: John Woo, Khan Chan, Cheng Kuo, Heyu Sheng Cinematographers: Yue Lü, Li Zhang Starring: Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang Studio/Run Time: Magnolia Pictures, 148 minutes Woo returns to China for an epic war movie... read more
The 50 Best Movies of the Decade…
The 17 Best Romantic Comedies This Decade
Is Indie Dead?
Conan O'Brien and NBC's Relationship: Not Over…
The Eight Greatest Hold Steady Songs
Peter Gabriel Covers Album Gets Confirmed Tracklist,…
The National Announces New Album, Spring Tour
Galactic - Frends of Science
Pete Yorn - Lose You
Avett Brothers - The Avett Brothers -…
Kim Taylor - Days Like This
