Unfortunatley overhyped, this expose of the 2008 financial crisis told us nothing we hadn’t already learned from Michael Lewis’s more insightful The Big Short. It wasted its skewers on academics, who were hardly major culprits, and the talking heads who provided the story line were mainly people we’d never heard of, whose legitimacy was never […]
This had more the feeling of a short story – by O.Henry, say – than the movie equivalent of a novel. Not because it was short, which it was, but because it offered a slice of life, a la Woody Allen, without reaching any conclusions. Yes, it was a comment on the human condition, full […]
On my personal scorecard of movies with the most gratuitous scenes of characters smoking, there is a new leader: Nowhere Boy. Scarcely a scene goes by without someone, old or young, fingering a cigarette. This factoid is of added interest, if not relevance, because director Sam Taylor-Wood happens to be the artist who created the […]
Less a plotted melodrama than a fascinating character study for which Jesse Eisenberg should get an Oscar nomination, at least. He does more with his eyes than most actors this year have done with their entire bodies. Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin is good, too, but I can’t say as much for the rest of the […]
Given that George Clooney has such good looks, good voice, eyes that twinkle and adequate acting ability, why can’t someone teach him to run? First in Michael Clayton, now in The American, this macho sexpot starts to sprint…and moves like a girl! Really, this movie is all about George Clooney, or should I say, George […]
This movie humanizes Major League baseball players in a way few others have, and gives meaning to Ozzie Guillen’s rant, earlier this summer, about the lack of support offered Latino players, compared to Asians. More to the point, it is a positive view of (illegal) immigration, supporting the view that these are good people, just […]
The most claustrophobia-inducing film I’ve ever seen, 93 minutes entirely inside a coffin, with one actor who can barely move, lit mainly by his Zippo lighter but often in total darkness, Buried adds one more cinematic chapter, for the politically minded, to the story, Why We Shouldn’t Be In Iraq. Along the way, his phone […]
Emma Stone proved a worthy successor to Ellen Page’s Juno in this story of the smart teenager up against the world around her, except for her supportive parents who can’t really help. Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow were reliable as the adult presences at her high school, and the story was sweet, so long […]
Written, directed and starring Ben Affleck, this could be added to the list of recent vanity projects, especially since his character is the only one who gets away. The star for me, however, was Rebecca Hall, who got to portray big-time ambivalence, and did it beautifully. The bank robbery scenes were far-fetched, but that didn’t […]
There’s something about a handheld-camera documentary that wears on me. The story would seem just as authentic if it were a bit more professionally made. Beyond that, I don’t think I was the target audience for a Facebook mystery. “Nev” was good-looking and a nice-enough guy, but I can think of others I would rather […]
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