Thin (review)

I thought I had issues with food — I just like it too much. But to see the four women portrayed in Lauren Greenfield’s startling documentary Thin is to see people at war not only with food but with their own minds and bodies.

Wolf Creek and Hostel (review)

Bad Things Happen When You Leave the City Well, there goes my dream of driving across Australia. I used to think, Hey, if I’m ever gonna go to all the expense of traveling to the opposite side of the planet, and spend 24 hours on a plane to get there, I’m not gonna go for … more…

King Kong (2005) (review)

Words like ‘meditation’ and ‘contemplation’ may seem inappropriate, at first glance, because the standard hack-movie-critic phrases like ‘roller-coaster ride’ followed by multiple exclamation points don’t even come close to doing justice to the heart-revving adrenaline rush Jackson has crafted. Two words: dino stampede. I probably should have put my head down between my knees and taken a series of long, deep breaths to recover from that early Skull Island setpiece, except it would have meant taking my eyes from the screen, and there was no way in hell I could have done that.

King Kong (1933/1976) (review)

What with the new DVD release of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 *King Kong* and the anticipation over Peter Jackson’s about-to-be-released homage, the eternal question is renewed: Just why the hell did the natives on Skull Island build an anti-Kong wall… and then put a Kong-size door in it?

Pride & Prejudice (review)

This is what, the 18,562,012th film version of Jane Austen? How many times can Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy misunderstand each other and yearn and burn and fail to see past their own snobbery and stubbornness until they finally do? Oh my god, do we really need another *Pride & Prejudice*?

A History of Violence and Derailed (review)

I knew nothing about *A History of Violence* before I sat down to watch it, absolutely nothing except that it starred Viggo Mortensen, and that that was enough to make me want to see it. I had even managed to avoid hearing that this was a David Cronenberg film, knowledge that certainly would have colored my expectations about it, as would have the knowledge, which I did not have until just before the movie began, that this was based on a graphic novel.