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The Spirit

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

At one point, for no good reason, Mendes’ sultry jewel thief photocopies her own ass. That’s this movie in a nutshell.

Doubt

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

Once upon a time, a movie set amongst priests and nuns and portentously titled Doubt might have concerned a crisis of faith. These days, however, another cause for uncertainty springs immediately to mind.

A low-stakes showdown

Frost/Nixon is insubstantial but engaging

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

Frost/Nixon is just an entertaining clash of two oversized egos, and that’s fine by me. Just so long as 30 years from now we aren’t obliged to endure the distaff sequel: Couric/Palin.

2008 in movies: A critical dialogue between Mike D'Angelo and Josh Bell

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008

Two Weekly critics discuss the year in films.

It’s not you, it’s us

Slumdog Millionaire may work for most, but not for us

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

Slumdog Millionaire arrives in local theaters riding a veritable tsunami of audience goodwill, to say nothing of its status as the current frontrunner for Best Picture at next year’s Oscars. People genuinely seem to love it. All I can do, really, is try my best to explain why I did not.

Moving forward but standing still

The Day the Earth Stood Still remake has updated politics, similar hokiness

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008

The Day the Earth Stood Still, which in 1951 spoke to the nation’s anxiety about the terrible power of nuclear fission, has now gone green.

Milquetoast Milk

Gay-activist biopic follows time-worn formula

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008

Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant, sticks fast to moldy biopic convention and features Academy Award-winner Sean Penn as doomed San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to win elected office.

A continent-sized failure

Baz Luhrmann’s Australia is too much of a bad thing

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008

Luhrmann has apparently concluded that nothing short of an entire continent can contain his go-large extravagance at this point. Thus, Australia, a three-hour epic that piles aboriginal mysticism on top of romance-novel ardor on top of Western cattle drives on top of WWII bombing campaigns, slathering it all with generous, sticky helpings of Hollywood’s beloved 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz.

Ashes of Time Redux

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008

Six years before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon introduced wuxia (the Chinese chivalry/swordplay genre) to a large American audience, Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai set out to create a particularly ambitious and singular example of the form.

In search of Charlie Kaufman

Synecdoche, New York finds the eccentric auteur lost in his own mind

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008

I feel compelled to issue a Critic General’s Warning: Unremitting bleakness may result in viewer tedium, and futile attempts to follow this film’s maddeningly recursive storyline have been demonstrated to cause painful migraine headaches in laboratory animals.