movie reviews

January 6, 2011

Season of the Witch

Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman

Directed by: Dominic Sena

Season of the Witch kicks off the new movie year with a resounding thud as Nicolas Cage, in a wig of blond ringlets seemingly snatched from Gwyneth Paltrow's Country Strong collection, portrays a knight of the Crusades on God's duty. It's the 14th century, baby, and Behman (that's Cage) and his comrade in arms, Felson (Hellboy's Ron Perlman), must deliver a witch (Claire Foy) to a monastery so a hotshot monk can read mumbo-jumbo at her and end the scourge of plague th... | More »

Country Strong

Gwyneth Paltrow, Leighton Meester

Directed by: Shana Feste

Country Strong? Talk about a title scam job. This lame-ass chick-flick sampling of Crazy Heart is more like country Kryptonite. The cast, led by Gwyneth Paltow as broken-down Nashville queen Kelly Canter, is sucked dry of any juice by Shana Feste, whose script is laughably inauthentic and whose direction marshals clichés as if they were freshly minted. Kelly is just out of a too-short rehab after a spectacular onstage crackup in Dallas where she drunkenly falls off the stage, suffers a... | More »

Gulliver's Travels

Jack Black

Directed by: Rob Letterman

In this live-action, 3D update of Jonathan's Swift's classic satire, Jack Black plays Lemuel Gulliver, a travel writer who lands in the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself among the little people. The 3D effects are beyond cheesy when they exist at all. At one point, Black puts out a fire by pissing on it. It's my job as a critic to piss on this dumb excuse for a movie. Consider it done. The 10 Worst Movies of 2010 | More »

December 29, 2010

Blue Valentine

Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams

Directed by: Derek Cianfrance

After being slammed with a restrictive NC-17 rating by the mega-dumb ratings board, Blue Valentine won an R rating on appeal without having to cut a scene or lower its sexual temperature. Good news. This wrenching story of a marriage that rides a roller coaster for six tumultuous years is not to be missed. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams give two of the most explosive and emotionally naked performances you will see anywhere. Just know you're in for a workout. The 10 Best Movies of 20... | More »

Another Year

Lesley Manville

Directed by: Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh's films are one of a kind. They're artful gifts of observation, humor and bruised humanity. Another Year is up there with the best of them. The script covers four seasons in the life of one British couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). They'd like to see their lawyer son, Joe (Oliver Maltman), find the right woman. That doesn't mean Mary (Lesley Manville), Gerri's co-worker. Mary drinks as hard as she chatters and flirts outrageously with the ... | More »

Biutiful

Javier Bardem

Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu

It would be impossible to list the Oscar-worthy performances of 2010 without highlighting Javier Bardem in Biutiful. Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros) describes Uxbal, the character Bardem embodies in flesh and spirit, as "devoted father, tormented lover, mystified son, underground businessman, ghost seeker, spiritual sensitive, consumer-goods pirate, guilty conscience and urban survivor." The 10 Best Movies of 2010 All of thi... | More »

December 21, 2010

True Grit

Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld

Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen

Leave it to the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, to do right smart by True Grit, the 1968 Charles Portis novel that a year later became the Western that won John Wayne his only Oscar. Audiences remember Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, the fat, one-eyed drunk of a U.S. marshal. But that's about all that sticks. By staying true to Portis — the richness of his language runs through the film like a vein of comic gold — the Coens have crafted a vastly entertaining Wild West show that is m... | More »

Somewhere

Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning

Directed by: Sofia Coppola

By taking her sweet, subtle time to tell the story of a Hollywood child (Elle Fanning) spending time with her neglectful movie-star daddy (Stephen Dorff), writer-director Sofia Coppola defies American audiences who want their films like their food: fast. Got to love the Coppola resistance. She gives Somewhere the hypnotically deliberate pace of a European art film, as Cleo, 11, hangs with her father, Johnny Marco, around L.A.'s Chateau Marmont. The 10 Best Movies of 2010 The two play v... | More »

Little Fockers

Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro

Directed by: Paul Weitz

The second sequel to 2000's Meet the Parents defines uncalled for. Little Fockers is upchuckingly unfunny. After nearly overdosing on Viagra, Robert De Niro gets it up. The movie never does. Video: Peter Travers Blasts Little Fockers in This Week's At the Movies The plot? Ben Stiller's Greg and wife Pam (Teri Polo) are prepping a 5th birthday party for their twins (cue the pee-poop-puke jokes). De Niro's Jack, the ex-CIA guy and Greg's pop-in-law, arrives with wife... | More »

The Company Men

Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner

Directed by: John Wells

A small movie, yes, but one with a large, achingly humane theme: the effect of corporate downsizing on the soul as well as the wallet. At first, you may not give a crap about what happens to white guys in suits who lose their jobs at GTX, a Boston manufacturing company. There's a stench of arrogance around Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck in top form), what with the chichi house, wife (Rosemarie DeWitt), kids, Porsche and golf-club membership. The 10 Best Movies of 2010 When he loses his posi... | More »