films
Holy Motors: Leos Carax's Chaplin-like statement on these modern times
Leos Carax's Holy Motors is another 2012 film giving the 20th century and its cinema a lingering, loving, wistful goodbye kiss. More
'Red Hook Summer': A worthy, outward-facing successor to 'Do the Right Thing'
Red Hook Summer, a spiritual sequel to Do the Right Thing, is a very good Spike Lee movie. More
Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis give us a 'Campaign' as banal as the real one
There was some talk about the “death of irony” after 9/11, but Bush turned out to be as much a gift to comics and comedy writers as he was a burden to the world at large. Tough times don’t always coincide with waves of great comedies, but the stupidity of politics and politicians at least provides reliable fodder. But if our current political troubles bring about a new wave of satirical brilliance, the middling comedy The Campaign, which opens today, is not a part of it. More
(1)'Bourne Legacy' leaves Matt Damon behind, but not his character
I thought Tony Gilroy might be able to pull off a great post-Matt Damon sequel to the Bourne Identity trilogy. More
When Alfred Hitchcock tributes stand up on their own
92YTribeca is about to kick off a short but sweet retrospective called "Hitch's Bastards," a six-film series of offbeat movies that either pay homage or are indebted to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. More
'Fritz the Cat,' the ridiculous X-rated cartoon-animal movie that was also a blockbuster
Of the titles screening at the Film Society at Lincoln Center's fun, summer-long "Midnight Movies" program, Fritz the Cat stands out for sheer lasciviousness. More
'Killer Joe' is unnerving, and not just because of the fried chicken
Killer Joe, based on a play about a corrupt cop in Texas trailer-park country, is a remarkable, and disgusting, movie adaptation. More
'The Dark Knight Rises,' a dense deployment of sound and fury
No one has ever wanted to be thought of as “cerebral” as much as the director of Memento and Inception. The Batman films that he's made have been less gimmicky in their convolutions—no dreams within dreams or backwards storytelling—attempting instead something on the scale of a Victor Hugo novel or Wagner opera. But along with that comes all the bombast and shallowness of a Hugo or a Wagner, with their addictions to backstory and exposition, tinny melodrama, and characters whose sole purpose is to advance a stalled plot. More
'The Dark Knight Rises': Gotham's final, reactionary State of the Union
One of the lovelier tricks a movie can pull is to make us miss somebody and then be grateful for even one fresh glimpse of them. It works on two levels. We are delighted to see or meet a memorable character in narrative context but also to find a familiar actor still alive and thrashing, on the screen, at least. More
(5)See Richard Pryor 'Live,' at midnight
On Friday and Saturday nights this summer, Film Society at Lincoln Center is doing midnight screenings of a mix of standard cult titles, like Evil Dead II and Lifeforce, and relatively obscure fare, like The House by the Cemetery. This weekend's pick is the series' most eclectic one: a 35mm print of Richard Pryor: Live in Concert. More
After 'Django' came 'The Great Silence,' a spaghetti western about bounty killers in Utah
The John Ford western was the inspiration for many other genres and subgenres, especially horror and science fiction.
So it's fitting that Quentin Tarantino has named his new homage to the spaghetti western Django Unchained, after Django's titular antihero. Like Tarantino's films and the spaghetti western genre in general, Django is pure pastiche, a hybrid genre film pulled together from various other generic tropes. Django, directed by Sergio Corbucci, is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy; it's a riff on A Fistful of Dollars, which in turn is a revisionist remake of Yojimbo, which is an homage to John Ford's westerns. More
Rock of Ages: Tom Cruise goes back in time again (and again)
At this point in his career, it's really impossible to tell who Tom Cruise thinks he is.
Cruise's decision to follow up Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, his most recent cinematic proof of life, by taking on the role of a has-been hair-metal rocker named Stacee Jaxx is an indication, if nothing else, that he's not overly concerned with extending himself. More
In a new documentary, Marina Abramović's presence is up for debate
If you were one of the lucky estimated 750,000 visitors who made it to the event—and its central exhibit in the atrium, in which Abramović sat immobile in a chair for seven and a half hours each day, silently gazing into the eyes of audience members who waited in long lines to take turns sitting across from her—you understand that her project of pure-presence-and-nothing-else performance art is built to resist the disembodiment of adaptation. Matthew Akers’ film, whose two-week Film Forum engagement comes in advance of its airing on HBO, is necessarily a watered-down simulacrum of the real thing. More
'Moonrise Kingdom' and the necessary Gizmology of Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson's latest film, Moonrise Kingdom, out today, epitomizes how, for him, attention to detail goes way deeper than forming a pretty picture More
(4)'Polisse': What could a child-protection officer possibly do for fun?
"You try to handle it on a case-by-case basis," one member of Paris' Child Protection Unit says, when asked about the emotional implications of his job.
He deals with victims of incest, pedophilia, drug addicted parents, abductions. The toll such work takes is extreme. More
