Screen
Hammer time
At this point in the Marvel Comics-derived superhero cycle, audiences can be forgiven for feeling a tad worn out, both for reasons of quality and quantity. My rear end’s thor just thinking about how many more we have coming. Yet sometimes a product exceeds ...
Vacant lots
Writer/director Sofia Coppola has made a movie that says nothing about people with nothing interesting to offer who steal from famous people who do nothing to be famous. And unless you’re a talk-show conspiracy theorist, it’s kind of hard to get too worked up about ...
Reel to reel | Week of Feb. 13
About Last Night An updated version of the classic romantic comedy. This film follows two couples from pickup line to bedroom. Rated R. At Century. All Is Lost Robert Redford stars in All Is Lost, an open-water thriller about one man’s battle for survival against ...
Partly sunny
To steal from Mother Goose (don’t worry, she’s dead): When Cloud Atlas is good, it’s very, very good; when it’s bad, Hugo Weaving is doing a drag impression of Nurse Ratched. The ambition of writers/directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Twyker, working from David...
Circular logic
Writer/director Rian Johnson is fantastic at making pretty good movies. 2005’s Brick was a slyly conceived yarn that took 1940s private dick dialogue and plot and affixed them to a modern high-school setting, with middling effect. 2008’s The Brothers Bloom was a ...
Not this again
Disney’s effort to turn Kristen Bell into America’s Sweetheart reaches its tipping point with You Again, a flat romantic comedy that packages her in a funny setup and surrounds her with funny people...
The old west refined
At this point, the folks at Rockstar Games can do no wrong. Red Dead Redemption is...
Fun with boxing
Six years ago, Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby showed up late in the release calendar and walloped enough fans of boxing melodrama cliches to send it straight to the Academy Awards. Now comes The Fighter, an off-center but exceptional boxing film that I prefer ...
