The Diary of a Teenage Girl movie review: crossing no-woman’s-land to adulthood
It shouldn’t be radical to see a movie treat a girl with this level of appreciation and understanding of her most intimate inner self. Yet it is.
San Francisco
Inside Out movie review: all the feels
There is joy and wonder in this marvelous mounting of a human mind, and a thrilling audacity in how it dares at such a strange and impossible thing.
San Andreas movie review: 9.6 on the Ridiculous Scale
Cornball disaster-porn melodrama… in 3D! Dumb, insulting, and bloodless. It’s Hollywood’s subconscious death wish brought to life, in more ways than one.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie review: people get ready
A magnificent science fiction drama, and a beautiful one. Wonderfully radical for the simple fact that it is ruled by principled ideas.
On the Road (review)
If you didn’t know that Jack Kerouac’s novel was a seminal influence on postwar America, you would never, ever guess it from this lifeless, soulless, pointless adaptation.
Cloud Atlas (review)
Insanely grand… My god, I love this movie. It’s every movie. It’s the ultimate movie.
The Five-Year Engagement (review)
There simply never seems to be any reason why lovebirds Tom and Violet can’t just get married already. Unless the film is delivering an object lesson to uppity career ladies…
Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie review: of primate bondage
Jokiness and hokeyness have been genetically engineered away, leaving something pure and sweet and poignant, a throwback to late-60s/early-70s humanist science fiction. More Charly than Heston.
Hereafter (review)
I sincerely cannot help but worry, with no snarkiness intended whatsoever, whether Clint Eastwood has gone senile. He is 80, after all. I hope this not the case, of course, and I certainly don’t wish it on the guy, but I can’t imagine what else explains this utterly baffling film.
Howl (review)
James Franco’s elucidation of Allen Ginsberg is soaring in its warmth and sincerity. The words are (mostly) the writer’s, but the vitality and the passion are all Franco’s: he makes the poet breathe for us today in a way that feels entirely modern and relevant.
