Priest (review)
Hey! It’s a supernatural horror flick about the clash between the power of the institution of The Church and the power of personal faith and belief. Oh, and also about kicking vampire ass.
girls/women
Something Borrowed (review)
The genre always assumes we’ll sympathize with ugly, soulless, personality-free women doing terrible things to the people they supposedly care about in the pursuit of a wedding, because what is more important than landing Mr. Right, right? But even grading on that rom-com curve, this is a disgusting movie.
Water for Elephants (review)
As cornball goes, there’s nothing cornier than running away to join the circus. And that’s why Water for Elephants works so beautifully: It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than an old-fashioned melodrama yarn-spun for as much emotion and tragedy and romance as possible.
Hanna (review)
Joe Wright makes sure his story looks great — and sounds great, with its aurally spectacular Chemical Brothers score — but it’s an empty experience, a Frankenstein story with no heft, indeed with little apparent awareness of the classic tale it is evolved from.
Miral (review)
What could possibly be offensive about artist-filmmaker Julian Schnabel taking on an underdog tale and imbuing it with his usual warm, empathetic, humanist touch? Ah, here is Schnabel’s mistake: his story is about a Palestinian girl, and he fails to give equal time to the Israeli side of the story, an unforgivable transgression in the eyes of many. That said…
Oranges and Sunshine (review)
Hilarious true story. You’ll love this. In the 20th century, up until as late as 1970, thousands and thousands and thousands of British children were forcibly deported to Australia, where they were herded into group homes or other institutions, treated like slave labor, and subject to regular physical and sexual abuse on top of the emotional abuse of being ripped from their families, their homes, their country.
Mars Needs Moms (review)
Do kids really need to be reminded — in IMAX 3D! — that Mom loves you and has your best interests at heart when she tells you to eat your broccoli and gets mad when you feed it to the cat instead? I guess someone at Disney figured this was the case.
Pushing the Elephant (review)
This simple, stunning portrait of the strength and commitment of Rose Mapendo — survivor of ethnic cleansing and humanitarian worker — is no dry discourse on the tough, demanding work of humanitarianism. It is a deeply moving look at the real toll such work has had on one woman’s life…
Sucker Punch (review)
This SUCKER PUNCH from my man Zack Snyder is just like so totally fukkin awesome I dont even know where to start. Who the fuk wants to watch fukkin hobbits gettin all weepy and shit get to the part where we get to see orcs vomittin black blood when there heads get loped off and shit. And its all in the fukkin slomo shit where you can like really savor that shit and make it last. Thats what SUCKER PUNCH is just one long aaaaahhhh of awesomeness.
The Concert (review)
This is how you get your arthouse-averse friends to watch a foreign fil-um: show them The Concert. Yes, they’ll have to read subtitles, but it is just simply crammed with so much Hollywood feel-good that a studio remake is surely just around the corner, probably starring Reese Witherspoon with a French accent and Stanley Tucci pulling a Russian one.
