Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012)

Like so many modern movie titles, Lincoln is only one word, and as with so many other titles, this offers an oversimplified, even misleadin...

Ishtar (Elaine May, 1987)

With Heaven's Gate  currently in the grips of revisionist appraisal (to which I may soon add my own voice once my disc ships with some p...

Romancing in Thin Air (Johnnie To, 2012)

By virtue of their outlandish style, Johnnie To’s films often broach the postmodern and Brechtian even at their most straightforward; think ...

Capsule Reviews: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Life Without Principle, On the Road

Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) Benh Zeitlin’s debut feature, Beasts of the Southern Wild , uses memories of Katrina as fod...

Anna Karenina (Joe Wright, 2012)

Joe Wright's previous literary adaptations have been awkward affairs, defined by a perennially miscast Kiera Knightley and an ostentatio...

Capsule Reviews: Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, Skyfall, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, 2012) Anticipating the ire of their many detractors, Tim Heidecker...

Generation P (Victor Ginzburg, 2012)

Generation P starts strong as an amusing take on Russia's post-perestroika marketing boon, where communism is made capitalist to sell W...

Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)

Leos Carax's Holy Motors , one of the standout releases of the year, reminds me another great recent picture, Jafar Panahi's This Is...

The Top 10 Martin Scorsese Films

With Martin Scorsese celebrating his 70th birthday today, what better time than to count down 10 of the greatest achievements of one of Amer...

Dionysus in '69 (Brian De Palma, 1970)

I never got around to this in my De Palma retrospective, so when Spectrum Culture decided to do one of its own, I knew I had to cover it. Th...

The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, 2012)

The contemporary prevalence of apocalyptic films reaches its apex with The Turin Horse . It contains the various dualities that have marked ...

The Comedy (Rick Alverson, 2012)

I've been more fascinated than consistently entertained by the likes of Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim and Gregg Turkington (a.k.a. Neil H...

Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki, 2012)

To pinpoint the moment Arbitrage  ceases to be plausible is to assume it ever established any kind of suspension of disbelief at all. And wh...

Capsule Reviews: Lockout, Fixed Bayonets!

Lockout (James Mather, Stephen St. Leger, 2012) Filmed in oxidized green-grays, Lockout  has an agreeably dingy look to it, something both e...

Vamps (Amy Heckerling, 2012)

A lightweight vampire parody that mercifully pokes at the deeper lore rather than just taking potshots at Twilight , Vamps  starts rough and...

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter Hunt, 1969)

In time for Skyfall 's release Friday, I looked back at possibly the best entry of the franchise, the unfairly maligned and forgotten On...

Detention (Joseph Kahn, 2012)

Joseph Kahn's  Detention  is a film so scatterbrained that it cannot even begin before getting distracted, introducing a secondary chara...

Viewing Log: October 2012

Theatrical Screenings Argo : Solid, if uneven, thriller. Affleck both growing and stagnating as a director. The Birds : Second, big-screen v...

Capsule Reviews: A Perfect Getaway, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Marnie

A Perfect Getaway (David Twohy, 2009) David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway is a lean, juicy thriller with a twist so good that not even an h...