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Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
(1964)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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A strong candidate for one of the greatest films of all time.
Posted Feb 28, 2022
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Mutual Appreciation
(2005)
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Nick Pinkerton
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If much of what I dislike in Bujalski's filmmaking must be accounted for by my objection to the milieu his films travel in, this shouldn't suggest that the filmmaking itself is anything close to competent.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Be Kind Rewind
(2008)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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Be Kind Rewind, while erring just this side of too adorable for its own good - it's nothing if not enjoyable for once again showcasing Gondry's ingenious guerilla filmmaking tactics - is still a bit of a setback.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Eastern Promises
(2007)
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Mark Asch
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Knight throws in a twist that scrambles the movie's moral compass so late in the game, so perfunctorily and so pointlessly, as to render any final reckoning incoherent.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Blade Runner: The Final Cut
(1982)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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The final cut seems to simply be an enhanced version of the 1992 director's cut, a technically perfected (Dolby remastered, special effects streamlined) fulfillment of the project Ridley oversaw but admits to rushing.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Sunshine
(2007)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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[Sunshine] delivers the visually incarnate truth of the universe's mysticism.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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The Boss of It All
(2006)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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If The Boss of It All is forgettable, it's not for its airiness, but for its failed artiness, and for von Trier's failure to be true to his art.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Funny Games
(2007)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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Defenders of Funny Games repeatedly point out that it shouldn't be fun. But if it isn't, then it should at least be subversive.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Paranoid Park
(2007)
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Justin Stewart
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Too brief and good-looking to actively dislike, Paranoid Park is still uninspiringly repetitive. If you're going to play the same riff over and over again, at least lower it an octave.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Shine a Light
(2008)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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In many ways [Shine a Light is] an unintentional funeral dance commemorating the vanished vitality and subversive potential of mainstream rock 'n' roll and celebrating its current utility as a nostalgic anodyne.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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The Cool School
(2008)
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James Hughes
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Neville's film shows, in effect, how deliberate the founding of an art movement can be. But also how thrilling it is for those at the eye of the storm.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Redbelt
(2008)
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Justin Stewart
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It's a bit disappointing that Redbelt doesn't go much beyond a redux of the same-old.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
(2008)
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Mark Asch
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What, really, is so progressive about jockish games of yeah-dude-I-just-went-there - especially as played by guys whose views of women are stuck in high school gym class?
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Flight of the Red Balloon
(2007)
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Patrick Z. McGavin
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[Red Balloon] takes the ineffable and makes it concrete and visible.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Brideshead Revisited
(2008)
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Justin Stewart
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It's easy to overstate the varied accomplishments here because of how badly it might have gone. That it landed somewhere between adequate and excellent is satisfying enough.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Pineapple Express
(2008)
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Mark Asch
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The party got out of hand towards the end, and we probably should have booked out before we got too tired.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Che Guevara
(2005)
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Eric Hynes
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Problematic as portrait, the film fascinates as a mess of artistic choices - some bold, some easy, many good in theory if not in effect.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Summer Hours
(2008)
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Eric Hynes
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Avoiding easy conflict and histrionics, Summer Hours instead shows loving siblings, relatives and friends negotiating differences the best that they can.
Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Shuga (Chouga)
(2007)
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Eric Hynes
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An adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina transposed to contemporary Kazakhstan, Chouga is a masterful distillation of the great novel's characterizations and themes.
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Tulpan
(2008)
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Eric Hynes
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From beginning to end, horizon to horizon, Dvortsevoy's film is simply a privilege to watch.
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Terminator Salvation
(2009)
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Steve Dollar
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I think McG just wants to show he can spend more money blowing up more stuff more better than Michael Bay. And that's just McDumb.
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Away We Go
(2009)
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Mark Asch
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In this movie about finding a place to call home, the final destination is telegraphed almost immediately - and it's a postcard spot that looks as artificial as the conflict that got us there.
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Pontypool
(2008)
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Mark Asch
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Pontypool's very resonant, localized fright, is to make sense of - to define - the inexplicable.
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Whatever Works
(2009)
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Justin Stewart
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[Whatever Works] has defenses built into it.
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Tetro
(2009)
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Justin Stewart
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The movie is befuddling, but not because of plot convolutions. It keeps you at a distance when it seems singly concerned with the particular plight of the "art family."
Posted Aug 23, 2017
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Burn After Reading
(2008)
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Justin Stewart
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Burn After Reading maintains comic balance, and after so many smart, gutsy Coen movies (many in the note of madcap), that shouldn't be a surprise.
Posted Jun 29, 2016
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Tropic Thunder
(2008)
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Justin Stewart
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More exhausting than funny, though it is often both, Ben Stiller's latest excoriation of ego wears you down with its smothering, pop-savvy cynicism.
Posted Jun 27, 2016
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Happy-Go-Lucky
(2008)
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Sarah Silver
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Once we relax enough to be carried along with the overlapping waves of jokes and remarks, the occasional quip pierces through the tornado of words and strikes a funny bone, sometimes before we realize why we are laughing.
Posted Jun 14, 2016
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Ballast
(2008)
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Nathan Kosub
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Ballast, if anything, is spellbound by location, and we all know what a spell will do.
Posted Jun 14, 2016
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W.
(2008)
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Eric Hynes
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Not only does W. fail as both drama and comedy, it's unclear which sequences are meant to be which.
Posted Jun 14, 2016
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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(2006)
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Nick Pinkerton
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For better or for worse, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is unique, an important movie, a multiplex comedy that doubles as a conceptual art epic.
Posted Jun 08, 2016
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The Wrestler
(2008)
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Mark Asch
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A quarter-century (and, one senses, a lot longer in Rourke Years) since he pulled the popcorn-bag trick on Carol Heathrow and then talked his way back into her good graces, we'll still forgive Mickey Rourke anything.
Posted May 17, 2016
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I Love You, Man
(2009)
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Justin Stewart
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That movies from this brand will have "heart" is now a given, but the variety Rudd provides here is singular.
Posted May 17, 2016
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Observe and Report
(2009)
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Justin Stewart
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There's a general overbearing unpleasantness to Observe and Report, and you get the feeling this was the intention -- in order to make it more "like life."
Posted May 17, 2016
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Adventureland
(2009)
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Justin Stewart
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Greg Mottola's third feature is more emotionally rich than his The Daytrippers and Superbad, but it's still more interested in the comedy than the woe and anxiety of the transition into adulthood.
Posted May 17, 2016
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Miracle at St. Anna
(2008)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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There's barely anything in Miracle that comes across as genuine.
Posted May 17, 2016
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In the Loop
(2009)
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Mark Asch
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Some have found In the Loop shallow for detaching its fevered gamesmanship from actual reasoning or consequences -- but isn't it rather chilling, how easy it is for the loop to form in a vacuum?
Posted May 17, 2016
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Humpday
(2009)
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Mark Asch
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Humpday works because... its moments of truth and familiarity aren't isolated.
Posted May 17, 2016
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(500) Days of Summer
(2009)
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Mark Asch
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Similar taste in stuff, it seems, is not reason enough to love a movie.
Posted May 17, 2016
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
(2008)
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Michael Joshua Rowin
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The film's joyless, going-through-the-motions mood cannot be ignored.
Posted May 17, 2016
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Vicky Cristina Barcelona
(2008)
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José Teodoro
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Unlike the vast majority of summertime comedies, the delights of Vicky Cristina Barcelona won't evaporate any time soon.
Posted May 16, 2016
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Synecdoche, New York
(2008)
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Justin Stewart
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The movie is ungainly, but to appreciate it one has to swallow the whole purple pill. As inconsistent as it is, it's still more album than mix tape.
Posted May 16, 2016
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My Winnipeg
(2007)
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José Teodoro
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With his thrilling new documentary portrait of his hometown -- or rather, his new "docu-fantasia" -- Guy Maddin proves that you can go home again.
Posted May 16, 2016
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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
(2007)
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Lawrence Levi
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The problem is that we get no real sense of what these characters were like before everything went haywire, so little is believably at stake.
Posted May 16, 2016
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
(2008)
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Eric Hynes
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There are worse films than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and those 15 masterful minutes may well justify the price of admission. But there's a lot of movie before and after Swinton's cameo.
Posted Dec 12, 2015
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It Might Get Loud
(2008)
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Steve Dollar
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Though slickly made, the film nicks through the varnish of celebrity to get these guys fully in touch with their inner music geek (which, honestly, is not that far under the surface).
Posted Dec 12, 2015
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Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
(2009)
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Mark Asch
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[Brief Interviews] is within the limits of the medium, a rigorous record of the process of thought.
Posted Dec 12, 2015
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The Invasion
(2007)
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Nick Pinkerton
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As straight-ahead, propulsive, reptilian-brain action, it "works" as often as not. But it's unworthy to stand with its predecessors.
Posted Dec 12, 2015
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Goodbye Solo
(2008)
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Mark Asch
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Goodbye Solo feels lived-in rather than forced upon us. Bahrani, who is his own editor, and regular DP Michael Simmonds have a sad, solitary, streetlamp-lit feel for night-shift rhythms.
Posted Sep 29, 2015
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Sin nombre
(2009)
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Mark Asch
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Sin Nombre still leaves an acrid aftertaste.
Posted Sep 29, 2015
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