LUV
So much of director-cowriter Sheldon Candis’ LUV demonstrates a singularity of vision and maturity of craft. With the city of Baltimore as a backdrop/character in its own right—similar to its “role” in the iconic TV show The Wire, an association alluded to with the casting of Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar) as a harassing cop—the filmmaker has produced an intensely personal movie and discovered an immense young talent in Michael Rainey Jr. But Candis doesn’t trust his himself to pull it off, weighing the film down with a disconnected score that pushes an otherwise edgy story into melodrama.... read more
Gangster Squad
There’s little to glean from Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad except for maybe a few modest laughs, whether the comedy be intentional or not, and some charm from Ryan Gosling (though, you could make that argument for any Gosling movie really). Despite its lack of offerings, the film does ironically provide an important lesson in filmmaking: ambition and ineptitude make a horrendous combination.... read more
The Baytown Outlaws
The grindhouse-meets-Dukes of Hazzard vibe of the new action comedy The Baytown Outlaws is instantly recognizable, and fits as comfortably as a weathered boot. With that vibe come certain expectations. Three Alabama hit man/brothers will most certainly clean out a house of their targets with shockingly laid-back professionalism. The opening credits will undoubtedly be filled with pulpy comic-book panel still frames announcing the cast and proclaiming the film’s ironic pedigree, a design choice so commonplace as to actually have the opposite effect. There will be hot chicks, blood, dust and lots of twangy guitar rock.... read more
Fairhaven
While his buddy/collaborator Chris Messina is coming off a breakout year with stints on Damages, The Newsroom and The Mindy Project (as well as turns in Argo, Ruby Sparks and Celeste & Jesse Forever), writer-director-star Tom O’Brien’s experience has been focused on the theater. But with Fairhaven, O’Brien makes an understated, confident entrée into feature filmmaking, mining male relationships to poignant effect in his writing, directing and, for all intents and purposes, acting debut. (He apparently appeared in The Next Karate Kid, according to IMDb.)... read more
Quartet
After decades spent in the film industry filling his repertoire with a host of classic films, Dustin Hoffman has learned a thing or two about how to make a movie. This is no where more evident than in his extraordinary directorial debut, Quartet. This film about four retired opera singers who regroup in their old age is as brilliant and lovingly composed as the operatic pieces that soar through the background. In short, it leaves longing for an encore.... read more
Struck by Lightning
It’s no spoiler to reveal that Glee’s Chris Colfer kills off the character he plays in his screenwriting debut. Like in Sunset Blvd. and American Beauty, he’s, well, Struck by Lightning before the opening credits end and narrates the events of the film from beyond the grave. Also like in those classic films, one tends to forget this tidbit as the plot unfolds, only to be poignantly reminded as the extended flashback catches up with the opening scene.... read more
A Dark Truth
The battle over water rights has long been a source for cinematic storylines, from John Wayne westerns like Angel and the Badman to Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. Like Polanski’s classic, writer/director Damian Lee’s latest thriller, A Dark Truth, is also inspired by actual conflicts—with Lee moving beyond California’s Owens Valley to a more global scale, spotlighting underhanded corporate dealings in South America and Africa. Unfortunately, any similarities end there.... read more
Not Fade Away
I’m confused as to which years are supposed to be the best years of your life. Is it supposed to be your 20s? Maybe it’s when things settle down in your 30s or 40s. Or perhaps it’s the second wave of freedom in your 50s and 60s? According to David Chase’s first feature length film, it might be none of those ages. Or maybe all of them, if you’re hip enough to stop and listen to the music.... read more
West of Memphis
Filmmaker Amy Berg (Oscar nominated Deliver Us From Evil) has once again struck documentary gold with her hard-hitting journalistic feature, West of Memphis.... read more
The Central Park Five
Critically acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns (along with co-directors Sarah Burns and David McMahon) is almost deceptive in his approach with his latest documentary, The Central Park Five. Audiences may be prepared for a movie about a group of young black and Hispanic men, wrongfully convicted of one of the crimes of the century—raping and nearly killing a woman (known famously as the Central Park Jogger) out on her nightly run in Central Park. However, this brilliant documentary is actually about the human psyche—specifically the ego—and the lengths to which all members of society (police, lawyers, members of the media, the... read more
Promised Land
Oscar-winning screenwriter Matt Damon has reunited with his Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant on this earnest environmental drama centered on natural gas extraction—aka fracking. Along with co-writer/co-star John Krasinski, Damon puts a human face on a polarizing news story, casting himself as antihero salesman Steve Butler, whose job it is to get struggling landowners to sign their energy rights away. He brings hope to small towns whose way of life is fading, and he believes in his message, having seen his own hometown die with the closing of a Caterpillar plant. “I’m not a bad guy,” he... read more
John Dies at the End
Freewheeling, gleefully meta sci-fi/horror/comedy John Dies at the End opens with a most appropriately gory allegory on the nature of reality. It functions as both wisdom and warning to the audience, but it’s disarmingly funny enough to appeal to those who would otherwise be deaf to its frequency. Cult favorite director Don Coscarelli knows which way to twist the knobs and navigate through the static of mindfuckery that follows.... read more
56 Up
56 Up is the eighth installment in Granada Television’s Up series, which documents the lives of fourteen British children beginning in 1964 when they were seven years old, up to today. Since the original episode, every seven years the camera crew has returned to catch up with the participants on where their lives have taken them since the last episode and to ask them a routine round of questions about their lives—the answers to which predictably vary wildly with the passing of time.... read more
Django Unchained
The best thing about Quentin Tarantino is also the worst thing about Quentin Tarantino—he believes, wholeheartedly, in whatever he’s doing. Most of the time, what he’s doing consists of overly referential homage mashups with dialogue that would give most screenwriters carpal tunnel. The old video store clerk is sublime at saying important things through mediums that don’t usually convey them—Kung Fu films, revenge fantasies and spaghetti Westerns, for starters. He is an artist dressed as a Philistine, splattering the screen with cartoonish violence when what he’s really blowing is our minds. This works, works well, and works often. The House... read more
Les Misérables
The film features excellent singing, for the most part, but it also emphasizes fragility in a work that’s largely defined by its grandiosity. read more
This Is 40
Judd Apatow might just be the dirtiest moralizer in all of Hollywood. His comedies boast some of the foulest language and humor of their genre, but, at the same time, they celebrate traditional religious values. While this may seem like a contradiction, it’s what makes Apatow’s body of work so unique and pertinent, as the director conveys timeless truths using a coarse modern vernacular. This Is 40, a loose sequel to Apatow’s Knocked Up and the latest example of Apatow’s values-based story-telling, tells the simple yet emotionally complex story of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife), who... read more
Jack Reacher
As they say in sensationalist movie-poster-speak, “Tom Cruise is Jack Reacher.” Except in this case, that should perhaps be amended to “Tom Cruise is only kind of Jack Reacher.” The straight-laced megastar is, frankly, miscast as our eponymous hero, an ex-military policeman turned vigilante/detective who lives off the grid. Of course, this is not news to fans of the popular book series by Lee Child, who have been grumbling since Cruise first signed on. These days, the lamentations of the devoted are as expected as they are usually unfounded, but in this case they have a point. While Cruise... read more
On the Road
Adapting Jack Kerouac’s On The Road for the big screen has been a long time coming, and it was only a matter of whom would possess the courage—and perhaps a dash of martyrdom—to do so. Finally, Walter Salles has taken a shot at the long-deemed-unfilmable novel, and as would have been the case regardless the director, the film is going to garner a wide array of reactions. To Kerouac fans: proceed with caution. The authenticity of the film’s Beat flavor is mild at best. To everyone else: don’t look too deep, and the sexy surface will entertain marvelously for a... read more
Zero Dark Thirty
Chastain has a sort of gritty elegance as Maya, an intelligence operative who begins her assignment in 2003 a little green around the edges, and ends it in 2011 as a tough, semi-obsessed expert. read more
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
For all the unique obstacles that Jackson surmounts, The Hobbit falters most in some of the most ubiquitous of cinematic challenges: pacing and realism. read more
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