Screen
Team Jarmusch
It’s amazing how popularity can change perception. When Stephanie Meyer’s 2005 novel, Twilight, cracked The New York Times bestseller list, vampires were brought back into the mainstream in a big way. Beginning in 2008, Meyer’s series was adapted into five movies and...
Kaiju goo goo
Oscar-winning fish pornographer Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim was a just-fine endeavor hailed as near-sexually-satisfying by a vocal community blessed/cursed with low expectations. Pacific...
The way to dusty death
Style is half the picture. Story is the other half. William Shakespeare’s 17th-century play, The Tragedie of Macbeth, might be one of the greatest stories...
An animated yawn
Earlier this year Despicable Me proved it: A story about a hapless villain, humanized, is good for a few laughs and a half-billion dollars worldwide. That figure would very likely be A-OK with the makers of the new DreamWorks animated feature Megamind, also about 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...
All is grace
General Lorens Löwenhielm (Jarl Kulle), a middle-aged man with a lifetime of missed opportunities behind him, has come to dinner. Seated next to his...
Home Viewing: Melissa Tamminga on ‘Stories We Tell’
About halfway through Sarah Polley’s 2013 documentary Stories We Tell, Michael Polley turns to his daughter and asked, “What is this documentary about?”
Well, it’s...
‘Ninja Assassin’ run-of-the-mill
In Japan, where the blades are shiny and sharp and if the...
Origins of evil, zombies and a film festival on the rise
It’s a cool spring evening with a bit of a breeze coming in off the mountains — just enough to slam a few doors and lift a few curtains. Old iron gates swing on their hinges in the courtyard. Though it’s too dark to clearly see the surrounding peaks, there’s a ...
‘Hangover’ hangover
For some movies, seeming funny is enough. The Hangover Part II only has to show up to succeed. At once pushy and lazy, the sequel follows the 2009 smash, which has become the most lucrative R-rated comedy in history. Isn’t that depressing? I find that depressing...
Wahlberg pulls through
Playing a reformed cargo smuggler sucked back into the game, Mark Wahlberg is the star of Contraband, a fairly entertaining remake of the 2008 Icelandic thriller Reykjavik-Rotterdam...
