The Grand Budapest Hotel review

Directed by Wes Anderson, Written by Anderson and Hugh Guinness, inspired by the writing of Stefan Zweig A new Wes Anderson film is always an event. The Texas-born filmmaker may be too precious for some, but show me one of his peers with such a distinctive, irrepressible visual and thematic style, a sweet-sad combination of nostalgia…Read More

Divergent review

Directed by Neil Burger Written by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, from the novel by Veronica Roth It's been a while since I've had such aggressively ambivalent feelings about a movie. While I felt the premise and many of the plot details were ridiculous and poorly thought-out, I really enjoyed the feature's execution: The direction,…Read More

Veronica Mars review

Directed by Rob Thomas Written by Thomas and Dianne Ruggiero By the will of Veronica Mars fans—"Marshmallows"—everywhere, we have a Veronica Mars movie. I love that crowdsourcing turned a low-rated but cult-beloved TV series that couldn't stumble past three seasons into a full-fledged feature film. Well, let me tell you with not a little bit…Read More

300: Rise of an Empire review

Directed by Noam Murro Written by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, adapting the Frank Miller graphic novel Xerxes To prepare for the sequel to Snyder's 2006 hit movie about the 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae, I went back and watched the original 300 one more time. My feelings about it were deeply ambivalent,…Read More

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) review

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki If this is to be Miyazaki's final film with Studio Ghibli—which, despite many false retirements, he says it will be—a romantic, historical drama about an engineer is an unorthodox subject matter to go out on. That said, it still has plenty of the fantastic and surreal whimsy he's become…Read More

2014 Academy Award Predictions

For those of you watching the big show this evening and looking for tips on how to fill your Oscar ballot, here's the way I think the awards will play out. My guesses are based on a fair amount of reading I did over the past few weeks (and hasn't this taken awhile to get…Read More

Winter’s Tale review

Directed by Akiva Goldsman Written by Goldsman, adapting the novel by Mark Helprin When I saw the trailer for Winter's Tale back in January, I was not impressed. It looked like the cover of a Harlequin Romance come to life. The advance buzz wasn't terribly promising, either. It didn't help that Goldsman, mostly known as…Read More