The Amazing Spider-Man (review)
The Amazing Spider-Man? That’s a stretch. More like the Halfhearted Spider-Man. The Just-Sorta-There Spider-Man. The Familiar Spider-Man…
coming of age
Rock of Ages (review)
The story is almost beside the point, because Tom Cruise’s nude torso that I could be running my hands all over and because the young kittenish leads in this story cobbled together around awesome 80s hair-band stadium anthems are the weakest part of it.
She Monkeys (Apflickorna) (review)
I’m struggling to find reasons to do more than merely coolly appreciate, from an emotional distance, the disagreeably detached dissection of young girls’ sexuality on offer…
Titanic 3D movie review: a human story
I had just begun my career as a film critic when Titanic was first released in late 1997. So I missed it, back then, what it was about James Cameron’s magnificent movie that was (and still is) so extraordinary.
Mirror Mirror (review)
It’s astonishing how little crazy one needs to bring to a movie at the moment to make it leap out as fresh and distinctive.
The Hunger Games (review)
Every once in a while, just as I’m about to succumb to Hollywood-stoked despair and ennui, a movie like The Hunger Games comes along to rescue me…
The Forgiveness of Blood (review)
American filmmaker Joshua Marston’s anthropological storytelling presents characters and cultures alien to his audiences’ eyes in ways that render them instantly and easily recognizable and sympathetic…
Black Gold (aka Day of the Falcon) (review)
There’s a lot of golden-age Hollywood in this tale of the earliest days, in the 1930s, of the Arab oil kingdoms. Some of it is just plain fun; some of it is cornball old-fashioned…
Arrietty (aka The Secret World of Arrietty) (review)
While perfectly pleasant and an entirely suitable option for anyone looking to take small children to the movies, it is a disappointingly minor entry in the annals of Studio Ghibli…
Pariah (review)
Writer-director Dee Rees, in an assured feature debut, expands on her award-winning 2007 short of the same name to tell a story all but ignored in pop culture: the coming out of a black teen lesbian.
