Screen
Fast, furious fun
As adolescent male power fantasies go, Fast Five has an undeniable trashy charm...
Race scar drivers
Here in ’Murica, when we watch cars go round in circles while Kid Rock’s “Bawitaba” plays in the background, we have the decency to let the walking billboards who are driving vehicular billboards have a roof on their car. That way, they only die sometimes, as opposed...
The sound of a true American voice
Ten years ago at the Sundance Film Festival, a new voice in American cinema was announced. The voice was not loud, but it was clear, and it belonged to the 29-year-old Ramin Bahrani...
‘Sherlock Holmes’ looks good, but no reinvention
I've been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detail-oriented detective, Sherlock Holmes, for as long as I can remember. The Holmes canon is extraordinarily rich and directors as talented as Billy Wilder and Barry Levinson have tackled it with varying levels ...
Grade A-Holes
The proliferation of comic book movies has reached its cultural apex, so thoroughly dominating the box office and public consciousness that a backlash was practically invited. While the public plays Oliver Twist, wallets open and begging for more, those who ...
Too many Ds
When you remake a movie that originally starred Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider, it’s not a challenge to clear the bar that was set. Limbo-ing beneath it, however, would require a shrink-ray gun. So it is the faintest of all possible praises to say that Dredd 3D...
Tolerable levels of cute
We’ve all been there, that moment in time when destiny knocks on the door, and we’d rather just yell “Go away, I already have plans!” So it’s easy to identify with E.B., the drum-playing rocker in the lead role of Hop. His destiny? He has to take over for his dad as ...
Comedians united
It seems like an odd way to start a review for a movie in which Will Ferrell tries to make Zach Galifianakis touch his testicles on stage during a debate, but The Campaign has a clever message...
No-town music
At its worst, cinema verite is aimless pretense masquerading as artistic intent. At its best, it is Detropia, a documentary that adds soul to statistics, going inside the implosion of a once-proud city using a sprawling, haunting approach. That isn’t to say that ...
