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Reel to reel | Week of July 5, 2012
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER No more sensitive, sparkly vampires — Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter takes bloodsuckers back to their grisly origins as terrifying monsters. In the film’s universe, Southern slave owners are vampires, and President Lincoln is the one...
M. Night trips and falls in the dark
According to The Last Airbender — the latest 3-D offering in theaters, yet barely functional in 2-D or even 1-D — the world’s separate kingdoms are built around fire, air, water, earth and impenetrable, rock-hard exposition. Bringing those first four to the ...
Where you been, Laden?
That members of the U.S. Senate have spent more time discussing the fictional depiction of torture in Zero Dark Thirty than they spent discussing the actual torture the military was performing in the wake of 9/11 is yet more proof that “Congress” is the opposite of “...
Awful, not full of awe
Preposterous, pseudointellectual, poorly constructed, clichéd, impenetrably masculine, goofy and possessed of an indecipherable ending, Interstellar is the mother of all misfires. It is a bloated juggernaut of stupidity, rolling its obese body stuffed with ...
Corporate fate
David Norris (Matt Damon) is a young go-getter New York politician who has a chance encounter with the quirky, engaging Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a ballerina who captures his attention immediately. Strange forces are at work and Norris is assaulted and wakes up in ...
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...
Falling down 12 steps
The ubiquitous hyperbolic after-school-special type of dramatization of the perils of alcoholism has lost its teeth; it no longer delivers a social bite so much as it gets drool everywhere. Thus, in many ways, what Smashed wanted to do is something necessary, as we ...
Reel to reel | Week of September 19, 2013
Afternoon Delight Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) is a quick-witted and lovable, yet tightly coiled, 30-something steeped in the creative class of Los Angeles’ bohemian, affluent Silver Lake neighborhood. Everything looks just right — chic modernist home, successful husband, ...
For ‘Shutter Island,’ the wait may be worthwhile
Movies can be like wine: Once uncorked, they don't often last long on the shelf. But Hollywood history could be a lot kinder to the postponed "Shutter Island," and the movie's last-minute date change might actually work to the thriller's advantage...
