> If you were going to describe the films of Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives, The Long Day Closes, The House of Mirth) in one word, that word would not be “dynamic.”  Or “kinetic.”  Or, well, “exciting.”  Davies directs stately tableaux, impressive and sometimes moving, but rooted in nostalgia and regret. Which is why […]

    JACK AND JILL:  Not At Any Price – 2 Adam Sandlers is 2 Too Many   Does anyone really expect an Adam Sandler movie to be good anymore?  Seriously, if you put aside his occasional relatively serious efforts (Funny People, Reign Over Me, Spanglish, Punch-Drunk Love, all boxoffice failures), and the occasional passable […]

  Like his Oscar-winning A Separation, Asghar Farhadi’s THE PAST is concerned with the abyss of uncertainty and mystery that lies under seemingly straightforward actions, the ever-increasing complications that become evident whenever one scrutinizes the events and motives of everyday life. Although the setting this time is Paris, and the characters aren’t the same, in many ways, The […]

  PAIN AND GAIN:  Watch It At Home – Michael Bay On a Small Scale is Still Michael Bay There’s an almost meta strain that runs through Michael Bay’s PAIN AND GAIN, and you have to wonder, watching it, how much Bay was conscious of the fact that his customary musclebound, bloated, meatheaded style of […]

> Tonight at 43 real Imax theatres (the ones with the huge squarish screens), Warner Bros debuted an extended trailer for next summer’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES shot in the full Imax format, consisting of the opening sequence and an extra minute or so of quick clips from the rest of the movie.  Apart from […]

    J. EDGAR:  Watch It At Home – Brokeback Hoover   It’s a little unexpected that of all the films Clint Eastwood has directed, his new biography J. EDGAR most resembles The Bridges of Madison County.  Measured and mournful, the film, which opened the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles last night and opens […]

  42:  Watch It At Home – The Hallmark Baseball Hall of Fame It may well be that 42 is the Jackie Robinson movie audiences want.  It’s a straightforward, handsomely-produced, inspirational telling of a genuinely uplifting story, the 1946-47 baseball seasons when Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) broke the color line in American baseball, first in the […]

  Warning:  this piece will discuss details of the storyline of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES as well as the other Batman films.  GIANT SPOILERS WILL ABOUND; proceed at your own risk. Christopher Nolan is remarkable among the great directors of action films–Steven Spielberg, David Lean, James Cameron, John Ford, certainly Michael Bay–in that while working […]