The Odd Life of Timothy Green
The Odd Life of Timothy Green is an odd, at-times moving meditation on parenthood—the desire to be a parent and the challenges of being one—wrapped in a fairy tale with creepy side-effects. Kid-friendly but not for kids, writer-director Peter Hedges’ family fantasy drama is sentimental and slickly produced—as well as thinly plotted and somewhat thematically disquieting.... read more
Red Lights
Skepticism is championed until it’s suddenly and inexplicably not in Red Lights, Rodrigo Cortés’ muddled follow-up to Buried. Unlike that prior effort, an efficiently compact and constrained thriller about a man who awakens inside an interred coffin, Cortes’ latest is a sprawling mess both narratively and thematically. It takes as its focus two scientists, Margaret (Sigourney Weaver) and Tom (Cillian Murphy), whose careers are split between lecturing about the non-existence of paranormal activity and going out into the field to debunk charlatans who claim to hear voices and commune with the dead. Casting Weaver as a literal ghost buster is... read more
Union Square
A reunion of sisters leads to simmering tension, shocking revelations and cathartic healing and understanding of a pat sort in Union Square, a small-scale drama set largely in an apartment in Manhattan’s titular neighborhood. Nancy Savoca’s film wears its indie-ness on its sleeve, relegating itself to one primary location and a number of sequences shot on the streets of New York, a low-budget construction that concentrates squarely on the story’s two protagonists, Lucy (Mira Sorvino) and Jenny (Tammy Blanchard). Lucy is in town to meet up with a boyfriend, a plan that—involving going shopping for leopard-print dresses to impress her... read more
Goats
Sweet and simple, almost to a fault, Goats tells a familiar story of a child at the center of a bitter feud between his long-since divorced parents. In his debut film, director Christopher Neil plays it safe (though this may not necessarily be a bad thing). In the end, a strong cast and the sweet and simple nature of the script (based on the novel by Mark Poirier) makes Goats a charming little indie tale worth the viewing.... read more
The Chilean Building (El Edificio de los Chilenos)
Let’s start with the safe claim that family dynamics are one of the most deeply felt parts of anyone’s life. It’s biologically ingrained in us to not only need parents, but to want to need them, too. In her documentary, The Chilean Building (El Edificio de los Chilenos), Macarena Aguiló explores a microcosm of blood bonds and how this innate desire plays out when extraneous circumstances force parent-child relationships to take a new shape. What begins by seeming like an artful news story about the children of Chile’s 1970s revolutionaries ultimately amounts to a case study of a simple human... read more
2 Days in New York
A matchless New York romantic comedy with language full of smarts and crudeness, 2 Days in New York brings audiences a hilarious 48-hour portrait of an atypical modern family. The sequel to Julie Delpy’s manic 2007 film, 2 Days in Paris, New York utilizes the same Parisian family-meets-American boyfriend formula but this time around swaps cities and companions, replacing Paris’ Jack (Adam Goldberg) for a toned-down Chris Rock as Mingus.... read more
The Campaign
There’s something depressing about movies about politics, even ones as light-hearted as The Campaign tries to be. Corruption is apparently so pervasive that it’s the fallback narrative for politically themed films. The latest from Jay Roach, who’s directed serious political dramas (Recount and Game Change) as well as broad comedies (Meet the Fockers and Dinner for Schmucks), is a montage of funny sketches (many of which you’ve already seen in the trailer, although the previews also contain gags ultimately left on the cutting-room floor). But as uplifting as the slight story line aims to be, it unfortunately still leaves a... read more
The Bourne Legacy
In a nice bit of visual symmetry, The Bourne Legacy picks up with the same image that both launched the billion-dollar series a decade ago and concluded Matt Damon’s contribution to the franchise in The Bourne Ultimatum: a body floating in the water. When we last saw amnesiac Jason Bourne, he’d figured out who he was, decided he wanted out and slipped away in the murky depths of New York’s East River. His character motivation, as compelling as it was—literally, who am I?—was played out, providing a graceful exit for Damon and director Paul Greengrass and opening the door for... read more
Red Hook Summer
One could argue that Spike Lee’s strength as a director lies in his ability to construct a compelling story, where other great directors (and writers) are adept at surrendering themselves, in a way, to their work. Lee does not do this; his filmography shows that he is an activist through his art (Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X, When The Levees Broke, etc.) and—knowing this—viewers and critics allow his hand to bear down on his work far more than would normally be acceptable for a “good” film. For that very hand, Lee is revered and by that hand, his movies... read more
360
With all due respect to Fernando Meirelles, the director behind the terrific 2002 gangster flick, City of God, the Brazilian film maker’s new film is so bad that it almost feels like a sin to take the time to write about it. Burdened with a dawdling pace and a contrived storyline (and the moral vacuum said storyline creates), 360 falls short on pretty much every level.... read more
Hope Springs
A schizophrenic hybrid of tee-hee sex comedy and serious relationship drama, Hope Springs finds itself hopelessly adrift in a non-committal middle ground. David Frankel’s film concerns the longstanding marriage of Connecticut couple Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones), which has settled into a familiar, enervating pattern of Kay serving Arnold the same breakfast each morning (two eggs sunny-side up, a strip of bacon, coffee) and then waking him from his living room easy chair (in front of TV golf broadcasts) each night. With their two grown kids out of the house, Kay and Arnold have calcified into complacent... read more
Total Recall
The production design is first-rate, creating a gritty feel of real—especially in the Colony scenes—that bespeaks exhaustive and competent attention to detail. read more
Celeste and Jesse Forever
For the 90 minutes following Lily Allen’s on-point opening track, “Littlest Things,” Lee Toland Krieger delivers a portrait of a relationship rife with contemporary uncertainties, in which one participant is consumed by what’s trending, and the other is just coasting.... read more
Klown
Raunchy, awkward, over-the-top and fun, Klown will please many fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Louie. It’s a more absurd, bawdy version of Sideways—without the wine—that goes for more out-and-out laughs than heartfelt drama.... read more
Ruby Sparks
Given her lineage, it’s no surprise that Zoe Kazan’s debut as a screenwriter results in a charming, heartfelt romantic comedy that is nothing less than sheer pleasure to watch from start to finish. Inspired by the Pygmalion myth, it also doesn’t hurt that Kazan’s script is directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the duo that brought us the unexpectedly extraordinary Little Miss Sunshine six years ago. Although not in the league of the indie masterpiece that was Sunshine, Ruby Sparks delivers an unpredictable, feel-good experience that manages to remain surprisingly sincere despite a plot that sometimes reads like a... read more
The Queen of Versailles
Director Lauren Greenfield only meant to take a few pictures of a very wealthy family in the midst of all their opulence. Her subjects were the Siegels—the self-made billionaire, the trophy wife, the eight not-as-maladjusted-as-you-might-think children, the monochromatic menagerie of animals. But once the family began opening up about their lives, the woman behind the camera decided to stick around a little while longer, positing that there might be more to this story than just infinity symbols for account balances. Her perseverance resulted in The Queen of Versailles, an alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching cautionary tale about the excesses of the... read more
Searching for Sugar Man
Detroit, 1968. One foggy night, two music producers slip into a smoky downtown bar to check out an unknown singer-songwriter named Rodriguez. When they first lay eyes on him, he’s hunched over his guitar with his back to the audience, but they are so bewitched by his soulful melodies and philosophical lyrics that they produce his first album, Cold Fact, convinced that they’ve discovered the Chicano Bob Dylan. The record flops. Big time.... read more
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Filmmaker Alison Klayman gained an astonishing level of access to the celebrated Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei in the years following the opening of Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium in 2008. No sooner was the stadium completed, however, than Ai—a design consultant on the stadium—became both the Games’ and the building’s most vociferous critic, calling them symbols of state propaganda. The criticism immediately made Ai a persona non grata in the eyes of the Chinese state but, to the free world, he was an exciting and shockingly frank artist from a place in sore need of one.... read more
30 Beats
There’s a moment in 30 Beats, from first-time writer/director Alexis Lloyd, where an attractive older woman (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) is trying to seduce a young man (Ben Levin) in a spa. The young man is unaware his father has actually hired the woman, a prostitute, to be his first sexual experience. As the two sit staring at each other across a hot tub, we briefly hear their inner thoughts about just how awkward the situation is and what the hell should they do now? It’s a sweet and funny exchange because it resonates as truthful. Yet, by being the only... read more
The Dark Knight Rises
Of course, following up a billion-dollar-grossing, critically acclaimed film is a daunting challenge. As proof, just try counting the times a trilogy capper has exceeded its lauded predecessor. read more
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