The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell is a man so wracked by his carnal urges that he walks in convulsive, post-coital spasms and pants in rag...

25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

I continue to love Spike Lee's 25th Hour , one of his most shamelessly white elephant features (topped only by Miracle at St. Anna  and,...

Boogie Nights

Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights revolves around one of the most darkly comic MacGuffins in cinematic history. Like the shark in Ja...

Almost Famous

Had anyone else directed Almost Famous , its syrupy sweetness would put its audience in the cinematic equivalent of a diabetic coma. But Cam...

25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

The aftermath of the September 11 attacks affecting cinema subtly at first, most noticeably the digital removal of the Twin Towers in films ...

Doubt

I tend to have problems with plays adapted for the film. Obviously this is not a blanket statement, since so many writers have moved a story...

Capote

Most biopics fancy themselves as insightful exposés of their subjects, revealing looks into the pathos and addictions and flaws that drove m...

Punch-Drunk Love

Following the highly-lauded ensemble drama Magnolia , modern auteur Paul Thomas Anderson scaled things way back, offering up a surreal roman...

Happiness

Just how much dramatic irony can you pack into one word? Todd Solondz seems willing to find out with the title of Happiness , a vicious soci...

Synecdoche, New York

There’s a heck of a lot going on in Charlie Kaufman’s latest opus, “Synecdoche, New York,” so much so that even the critics, whom everyone l...