> Gus Van Sant has been making movies for 25 years, but Restless–apart from its technical polish–feels like the work of a Sundance newcomer. And one who’s been reading too much Salinger, while meanwhile wearing out his DVD of Harold and Maude. Restless is way beyond twee; its mega-tweeness is like a Transformers movie compared […]

  Airing on Cinemax:  At Home In Your Home With the failure of THE INFORMANT! at the box-office in 2009 (it grossed around $41M worldwide), Steven Soderbergh seemed to reach a crossroads in his career. Informantfollowed the even bigger financial flop of his ambitious 2-part Che, and soon afterward he announced his intention to retire […]

    FRIGHT NIGHT – Watch It At Home:  At Least Farrell Had Fun   The new remake of Tom Holland’s 1985 FRIGHT NIGHT has a great set of credentials.  Craig Gillespie, the director, was behind the well-regarded indie Lars and the Real Girl, and has since been house director of United States of Tara […]

    THE MUPPETS:  Watch It At Home – Nonstop Cuteness   When it was announced that Disney’s new movie of THE MUPPETS (the Mouse House bought the entire franchise from Jim Henson’s company some years ago) was going to be written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, previously behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and Stoller […]

>Those interested in the disconnect between old-line film critics and audiences need look no farther than “In Defense of the Slow and the Boring,” a column in today’s NY Times.  In it, chief Times critics Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott each write about the worth of films some find unduly slow-paced, like The Tree […]

> Oren Moverman’s first film as a director, The Messenger, was a beautifully contained, emotionally detailed story about soldiers assigned to deliver tragic news to the families of the deceased.  In his new film RAMPART, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Moverman is more ambitious and, unfortunately, a victim of the sophomore jinx. This […]

 Not At Any Price:  “Art” More Than Art   The name Monte Hellman doesn’t mean much to the vast majority of moviegoers, but Hellman is among the cultiest of American cult directors.  He came up the Roger Corman path in the 1960s with Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper (his films from that era include The […]

REAL STEEL:  Watch It At Home – The Word is “Clunky”   REAL STEEL wants to be loved so much, it practically walks the audience members to their cars and offers to give them all a lift home.  And yet, the packed house I saw it with could only offer the movie a smattering of […]