Gone Too Far! review (London Film Festival)
Something like a Shakespearean comedy, full of highly amusing, sharply drawn characters…
2010 theatrical releases
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.
The Tempest (review)
There’s a little bit of Hammer horror in Julie Taymor’s messy but thrilling adaptation of Shakespeare’s last play, and there’s more than a little turning-of-the-tables, all of which brings a new perspective on the play, and a new appreciation for it, which is the best we can ask for the umpteenth adaptation of a centuries-old work.
The King’s Speech (review)
When Colin Firth wins the Oscar for Best Actor in a few hours for this role, it will be one of the rare happy concurrences of the actual best performance of the year being recognized by the industry’s highest honor as such.
Animal Kingdom (review)
This electrifying Australian crime drama sears all hint of the sentimental out of a harrowing tale of one Melbourne family’s felonious downfall, and — daringly — strips all sense of cinematic romance out of a genre that often idealizes the corrupt and the brutal.
Black Swan (review)
I’m not entirely sure how much of what we see in Black Swan actually exists beyond the fevered imagination of the protagonist. And that perilous hold on reality is far from the only thing to love about this gorgeously horrific nightmare.
I Love You Phillip Morris (review)
Bad Santa writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa graduate to writer-directors here, and give us a warmly human and hugely funny story that’s almost a sendup of both prison melodramas and hetero romantic comedies… yet is also a truly amorous and very satisfying tale about the extremes to which a man will go for love.
I’m Still Here (review)
Real or put-on, this is a disaster, a bratty, self-indulgent demand to be paid attention to, complete with the expectation that it will be paid attention to, because celebrity simply really is that irresistible no matter what it’s doing…
The Killer Inside Me (review)
This rare misfire from director Michael Winterbottom is extra disturbing because while it appears shockingly senseless, senseless is not what Winterbottom does…
Country Strong (review)
There’s solid workmanship and an authentic emotional muscle in this movie. I was startled to find myself overwhelmed, eventually, by its ragged charms and its rough-edged vision of female power and pain.
