Coco Before Chanel (review)
Audrey Tautou looks *amazing,* surrounded by women who flounce around like fluffy Edwardian fruit cups. But moments like that — in which you really feel the impact of Chanel’s legacy — are, *tant pis,* all too rare…
reviews by year
Motherhood (review)
It’s too bad that writer-director Katherine Dieckmann couldn’t imbue her portrait of the titular state with as much easy, authentic panache as she does her setting.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (review)
Riotously awful and simultaneously vile, this orgy of sexualize violence with no point except to give itself something to jerk off to…
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning (review)
Rewinding to 15th century Thailand, this is the downright Dickensian tale of a royal boy kidnapped by slavers and raised by thieves who grows into a man who vows revenge on everyone who’s wronged him.
Michael Jackson’s This Is It (review)
In the Year of the Gloved One 50, which was also called in the old calendar 2009, the people of the town of London came unto Michael with much wailing and despair. “Michael!” they beseeched Him. “Bestow upon us Your awesomeness. Bestow upon us the wisdom of Your spirit, and telleth us once again how Billie Jean is not Your lover and the kid is not Your son, for we long to be reassured. Giveth unto us 50 shows, one for each year of Your beneficence.”
Amelia (review)
This *Amelia* is a quiet, reflective film, and Earhart is not an icon or a symbol: she’s a human being, and the fantasy comes in how the film depicts her life and her achievements and everything about her not as something a *woman* did but something a *person* did.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (review)
John C. Reilly as a vampire? I thought: How can that not be funny? And it is funny, in a gentler, more unassuming way than you might expect…
Astro Boy (review)
It’s creepy, and it’s weird, and it’s something like a mecha minstrel show, particularly in how the film pretends to a ‘robots are people too’ theme yet fails itself to treat them as such.
Paranormal Activity (review)
So I finally saw this Paranormal Activity flick that all the kids are into today, and all I could conclude was, Really? They think this is pants-wetting scary?
The Damned United (review)
I might not know from football, I do know people, and *The Damned United* is an absolutely thrilling story, one both hilarious and poignant, about a man who is downright classical in his flaws…
