Movies
Short Reviews
Anna Karenina
November 29th, 2012
This heavily theatrical take on the old Russian classic is only a half-success. Directed by Joe Wright, it’s mostly staged inside a lavishly constructed playhouse, except when it’s not. Read more »
Short Reviews
Rise of the Guardians
November 29th, 2012
This, unfortunately, is the worst animated movie to ever wear the DreamWorks logo. Based on a children’s book series, it’s about a team that includes Bunny (Easter variety, voiced by Hugh Jackman), North (a.k.a. Santa, Alec Baldwin), Tooth (Fairy, Isla Fisher) and the silent Sandman. Read more »
Short Reviews
Red Dawn
November 29th, 2012
In the not-too-distant future, North Korea has invaded American soil. Our only hope is a gaggle of high school kids who form a guerilla army calling itself the Wolverines, after the local football mascot. Read more »
Movies
The Visually Impressive Life of Pi
Digital effects may steal the show, but you won’t mind the theft
November 29th, 2012
Life of Pi, Yann Martel’s little book about a young man and the sea and a tiger, has transformed into a big, imposing and often lovely 3-D experience. If the results are less about poetry and wonder than the digital and cinematic engineering designed to evoke those things, with this story—so very unlikely to succeed in any other medium—“good” is achievement enough. Read more »
Movies
Spy Another Day
This 50-year-old franchise finds new life as Bond fights the terrors of globalization
November 15th, 2012
Early on in his stage career, director Sam Mendes worked with Dame Judi Dench on a production of The Cherry Orchard. Now they have reteamed for a slightly less Chekhovian project: the 23rd official James Bond film (24th if you count the Sean Connery off-brander Never Say Never Again). It’s the seventh featuring Dench as M, Bond’s steely handler, and the third featuring Daniel Craig as 007. Read more »
Movies
Presidential Portrait
Spielberg offers an epic meditation on Lincoln’s last months
November 15th, 2012
Lincoln is a grave and subtle magic trick, conjuring the past and an impressive figure in ways that transcend art direction and the right stovepipe hat. Director Steven Spielberg’s latest combines the most commonly shared notions we have of our 16th U.S. president—the folksy deliberation, the spindly gait, the all-seeing eye on the prize of history remade—with the behavior, idiosyncrasies and contradictions of an actual human being. Read more »
Short Reviews
Flight
November 15th, 2012
Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis is back with this exciting and terrific film. Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) is a pilot who, after a night of drinking and snorting cocaine, crash lands a routine flight to Atlanta, rescuing most of his passengers and crew. Read more »
Short Reviews
Cloud Atlas
November 8th, 2012
This adaptation of David Mitchell’s spinning top of a novel exists to vex, intrigue and discombobulate unsuspecting audiences six ways to Sunday. It defies description. Read more »
Short Reviews
Wreck-It Ralph
November 8th, 2012
The latest from Disney Animation is a wild and imaginative exploration of a video-game fantasy, i.e., what happens in the lives of our favorite game characters when we’re not playing them? Read more »
Movies
Pilot of his own Destruction
Denzel Washington stars as a hero with a dark secret in this fantastic film
November 8th, 2012
Flight is exciting—terrific, really—because in addition to the sophisticated storytelling techniques by which it keeps us hooked, it doesn’t tell us what to think or how to judge the reckless, charismatic protagonist played by Denzel Washington. Read more »
