'Looper': Time-Travel Nonsense, Winningly Played
I adore time-travel pictures like Looper no matter how idiotic, especially when they feature a Love That Transcends Time. I love Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, The Time...
View ArticleAt College, A 'Pitch Perfect' Musical Comedy
Transcript DAVE DAVIES, HOST: Actress Anna Kendrick was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in "Up in the Air." Now she stars in the film musical, "Pitch Perfect," in which she plays...
View Article'Argo': Too Good To Be True, Because It Isn't
Ben Affleck's Argo is two-two-TWO movies in one, and while neither is especially original, by merging them Affleck pulls off a coup. First, he gives you espionage with the You Are There zing of a...
View Article'The Sessions': Sex, Comedy And Something More
In 1983, Berkeley poet and journalist Mark O'Brien wrote an article about sexual surrogates — women and men trained to help people with disabilities learn to use their bodies to give themselves and...
View Article'Mama': A Good Old-Fashioned Horror Movie
I was weaned on horror movies and love them inordinately, but the genre has gone to the dogs — and to the muscle-bound werewolves, hormonal vampires, flesh-eating zombies, machete-wielding psychos,...
View Article'Gatekeepers' Let Us Inside Israeli Security
The Oscar-nominated documentary The Gatekeepers centers on Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but from an unusual vantage — not the Palestinians or Israelis on the ground, but six men...
View Article'Caesar' Comes Alive In An Italian Prison
In the early '80s, Italy's Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio, made one of the true modern masterpieces, TheNight of the Shooting Stars. Set in the last days of World War II, when Germans laid mines...
View ArticleA Disappointing Thriller Channels Hitchcock And Bram 'Stoker'
Stoker has a ripely decadent, creepy-crawly feel that would have gotten under my skin if the tone weren't so arch and the people so ghoulishly remote. It's like a bad Strindberg play with added...
View Article'Oz': Neither Great Nor Powerful
Oz the Great and Powerful. Say that name aloud and you will smile, I guarantee you: It will conjure up so many images, characters, actors, songs.
View ArticleThree New Films Examine What It Means When Girls Act Out
In the '60s, some fervent rock groupies formed a band called the GTOs — short for "Girls Together Outrageously"— and while it didn't last, the name captures the impulse behind stories in which women...
View ArticleWith Vengeance And Violence, 'Olympus Has Fallen' Flat
What surprises me about the ongoing discussion of violence in cinema and whether it influences violence in the real world is how people fail to engage with the male fantasy behind these films. There's...
View ArticleGoing 'Mental' And Enjoying The Ride
Mental is madder than madcap. I heard one critic sniff, "It's kind of broad"— and, Your Honor, the defense agrees! But if broad means "unsubtle," it doesn't have to mean "unreal."Mental makes most...
View ArticleTerrence Malick And Every Man's Journey 'To The Wonder'
The voiceovers from Terrence Malick's To the Wonder, which has a lot of them, are intoned on the soundtrack while the characters stare into sunrises or sunsets — whenever the light is right, what...
View ArticleTom Cruise's Latest Headed For 'Oblivion'
Transcript TERRY GROSS, HOST: In December, Tom Cruise starred as the title character in the film "Jack Reacher." In "Oblivion," which opened on Friday, he plays another Jack, one of few humans left on...
View ArticleTwo Indie Directors Go Confidently Mainstream
Studios are putting most of their eggs in $100 million baskets these days, even as American independent filmmakers go hungry from lack of mainstream attention. But two of my favorite American indie...
View Article'Iron Man 3': Tony Stark As Homebrew Hero
The third time might be the charm for some things, but the number three after a movie title is typically shorthand for a deal with the devil.The studio thinks there's more money to be squeezed from a...
View Article'Into Darkness,' Boldly And With A Few Twists
Before I tell you about J.J. Abrams' second Star Trek film, with its youngish new Starship Enterprise crew, let me say that just because I've seen every episode of the original StarTrek and of The Next...
View ArticleTwo New Stories With A New-Wave Vibe
Lately I've been re-watching vintage Truffaut movies, and I've been struck by the resurgent influence on American independent films of the French New Wave of the late '50s and '60s.The Truffaut...
View ArticleRediscover Your Inner Anarchist In The Anti-Corporate 'East'
The second collaboration between writer-director Zal Batmanglij and actress and co-writer Brit Marling is called The East, which happens to be the name of the movie's anti-corporate terrorist cult....
View ArticleWhedon's Touch Finds A Match With 'Much Ado'
One word sums up my reaction to Joss Whedon's film of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing: Huzzah!Here is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer— and the director of The Avengers— working with...
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