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I liked Juno, I liked Thank You for Smoking, therefore I liked Jason Reitman. I had decided he was a director who I would always look for on DVD, and I did. From now on I’ll be going to the theater, because Up in the Air is a game-changer.

Now that the awards shows are over, the tally shows us that Precious has won 2 Oscars, 65 other awards, and has had 55 additional nominations. The film cleaned up at the Independent Spirit Awards, taking top honors.
But somehow, in this maelstrom of accolades, I wasn’t all that wowed. This movie is absolutely, positively worth [...]

First of all, anyone worried about this film staying true to the art of the original should know that author Maurice Sendak gave his full approval to director Spike Jonze, writer Dave Eggers, and their conceptual interpretation of his classic of childrens’ literature Where the Wild Things Are. This is not the Sendak book I [...]

I would never accuse disaster master Roland Emmerich of possessing nuance, or even style, for that matter, but he who gave us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow sure knows how to put on a show. I mean, in 2012, his latest end-of-the-world extravaganza, he destroys the White House with nothing less than an [...]

Although a certain esteemed colleague of mine would vehemently disagree with my opinion, I think my favorite character in The Informant! would probably have to be the hilariously Laugh-In inspired, assorted Americana-flavored score by national treasure/composer Marvin Hamlisch. I found the music served to keep a consistently absurdist tone throughout what might otherwise have been [...]

I never much cared for director Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, with its trippy time travel and cryptic-creepy rabbit, and liked his nonsensical Southland Tales even less. His seeming need for his films to be illogical eventually plagues The Box, too, turning what starts out as an intriguing and easy-to-grasp sci-fi parable into yet another mind-bending [...]

(Warning: Sports-related terminology, of both a British and American variety, is contained in the following review, including the usage of the term ‘football’ for ’soccer‘, references to 1970’s baseball managers, and the like. To find out whether the film is ’shot well’, is ‘well lit’, or is ‘an adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride‘, please consult the footnotes [...]

Everybody’s Fine, the third film from Waking Ned Devine director Kirk Jones, is a remake of an Italian film of the same name.
It’s the story of Frank Goode (Robert DeNiro), a recent widower. After his children (Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, and Kate Beckinsale) all call and cancel a planned weekend, he decides to go visit [...]

I’ve never seen a film of director Anne Fontaine’s (How I Killed My Father; The Girl From Monaco) before. I was reminded at a few moments in this film of the visual style of Sofia Coppola, which is a good thing in my book. I look forward to seeing Fontaine’s style grow and evolve in [...]

Every time I’ve chopped wood or watched anyone else do it, the basic motion is the same. The axe hangs slack, then swings back and behind the body in a sweeping arc over the head and down, splitting the log in two and embedding itself slightly on the block. It is a movement that mixes [...]