Trance review

Directed by Danny Boyle Written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge Like Steven Soderbergh, Danny Boyle is that rare filmmaker who can be called an auteur without really being a screenwriter. And just like Soderbergh, Boyle is so friggin' talented and confident in his camerawork, editing, and general cinematic verve that he can make the…Read More

AO Scott reviews Pain & Gain

I love it when certain highbrow reviewers stoop to admit they like some well-made trash. This line made me genuinely laugh out loud:"The movie and, by implication, those of us watching it are no better than these guys. I found that unspeakably insulting and also impressive."Here's a link to the full review at the New…Read More

The Place Beyond The Pines review

Directed by Derek CianfranceWritten by Cianfrance, Ben Coccio and Darius MarderThree stories, interlocked. The first: A stunt-driving motorcyclist (Ryan Gosling) returns to Schenectady, New York—a city whose name in Mohawk means, roughly, the title of this picture— and finds a woman (Eva Mendes) and an infant. Cycle guy decides to stay, to try and be a…Read More

Oblivion review

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Written by Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek, Michael Arndt, from a comic by Kosinski and Arvid Nelson Today I really miss Roger Ebert. I would have loved to have read what he thought of Oblivion. I know he enjoyed the work of Alex Proyas (Dark City, Knowing) for the expansive vision in his science…Read More

Why TV Is (Often) Better Than Movies

It's Sunday evening, April 14, and I've just read the box office totals for this weekend. I generally don't care much about this stuff, the fascination with the money a movie has made in a weekend. It's become a marketing tool for the Hollywood factory, and one of the reasons so many movies are so…Read More

Roger Ebert 1942-2013

It's hard to overestimate the influence and impact of Roger Ebert. People talk about Pauline Kael with hushed reverence now, but what made Ebert so great, certainly the greatest movie critic in my lifetime, was his ability to communicate in a language everyone could understand. I don't know if that was always true of Kael.…Read More