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The 10 Movies I'm Most Excited To See At Sundance 2014
The Sundance Film Festival, which gets underway Thursday, is divided into lots of different sections. (For instance, there's the U.S. Dramatic Competition, the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, the U.S. and World Cinema documentary sections, and the Midnight films.) But for most outsiders, there ar...
The Best Forgotten Movie Performances Of 2013
Yes, many people are already writing their Top 10 movie lists for 2013. We're saving ours for the last week of the year. While we wait for this terrific movie year to wind down, we're going to start looking back at some highlights. Today, it's our favorite forgotten performances: These won't be ...
The Best Movie Scenes Of 2013
Yes, many people are already writing their Top 10 movie lists for 2013. We're saving ours for the last week of the year. While we wait for this terrific movie year to wind down, we're going to start looking back at some highlights. Today, it's our favorite individual scenes....
Back In The Hobbit: <em>The Desolation Of Smaug</em>, Reviewed.
Expectations are such tricky things when it comes to movies. Before the first installment in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy debuted at the end of 2001, there was no guarantee that it would go on to become one of Hollywood's most profitable and Academy-approved franchises. Jackson an...
Accept The Mystery: The Brilliance Of The Coen Bros' Character Studies
Joel and Ethan Coen have been making movies long enough now that it's possible for fans not just to have a favorite film of theirs but a favorite type of film. Perhaps you love their loopy comedies: The Hudsucker Proxy, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski. Maybe you're partial to their heist-gone-wr...
"Real America," Minus The Condescension: <em>Out Of The Furnace</em>, Reviewed.
When Barack Obama made his comment during the 2008 presidential campaign about some Americans clinging to "guns and religion" during hard times, he might have been referring to the characters in Out of the Furnace, the new drama from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper. A subdued portrait of a blue-co...
Jerking Around. <em>Delivery Man</em>, Reviewed.
Vince Vaughn has an affable, doughy countenance that's so appealingly ordinary that sometimes it's impossible to believe he stars in movies. With his big forehead, bulky build and hangdog expression, he doesn't project any sort of sexual spark or compelling vibe. We're always told that movie stars h...
A Good Cry: How Alexander Payne Became The Auteur Of The Male Weepie
My favorite Alexander Payne movie is always going to be Election. His 1999 satire—about a high school teacher (Matthew Broderick) who makes it his mission to ensure that the ambitious Tracy Flick (a never-better Reese Witherspoon) fails to win her election for class president—wasn't just incredibly,...
Geezer Minstrelsy. <em>Last Vegas</em>, Reviewed.
Hollywood movies get a lot of things wrong: Midwesterners, marriage, transforming robots. But Last Vegas reminds us that they're also terrible at depicting old age. It's not that studios don't make movies starring older actors—Escape Plan just came out—but when they do, they often paint a picture of...
This Is Not Lesbian Pornography: <em>Blue Is The Warmest Color</em>, Defended
Blue Is the Warmest Color should have been one of the feel-good stories of the fall. A moving three-hour drama about a young woman named Adèle's (Adèle Exarchopoulos) coming-of-age while pursuing a passionate relationship with her first love, an out lesbian named Emma (Léa Seydoux), this French film...
Help The Aged. <em>Escape Plan</em>, Reviewed.
It's touching to watch Sylvester Stallone try to act. In his early days with Rocky, the guy had charm, an ability to reveal a light touch beneath his average-palooka demeanor. But in recent years, he's become as rigid as his face: a giant mass of muscles and mumbled words. His soft side all but abse...
The Unexpected Films Of Alfonso Cuarón
Some directors never make the same film twice. They move around between genres, challenging audiences to try to figure out the connections between their very different movies. A great example of this is Alfonso Cuarón, who's made children's movies (A Little Princess), sexy coming-of-age tales (Y Tu ...
Off-Putting Men, Fast Cars: <em>Rush</em>, Reviewed.
Rush succeeds not just because of what it is but because of what it isn't. A sports drama based on a true story, the film mostly stays away from the clichés that make fact-based sports movies so familiar. No rooting interests, no inspirational speeches, no feel-good message about the triumph of the ...
<em>Enough Said</em>: James Gandolfini Says Goodbye
Enough Said was always meant to be a bittersweet comedy-drama, but the film became additionally poignant after the unexpected death of one of its stars, James Gandolfini, this summer. One of his last movies, Enough Said isn't the definitive showcase for what the 51-year-old actor could do. (That's a...
The Best And Worst Of Summer Movies: A Grierson & Leitch Report
Summer movie season is over. It's finally had its fill of us, leaving our mangled body twitching on the side of the road as it drives off with a rubbery squeal. Here at Grierson & Leitch, we're very much looking forward to fall and its crop of award-hungry prestige movies—we're speaking, of course, ...
Wasn't It Nice To See Everyone? <em>The World's End</em>, Reviewed.
As funny and kinetic as his films have been, director Edgar Wright has never topped Shaun of the Dead, which is his only movie as emotionally and thematically engaging as it is intensely watchable. In that terrific horror-comedy, some pals (led by Shaun, played by co-writer Simon Pegg) battled a gr...
Does Not Compute. <em>Jobs</em>, Reviewed.
If Steve Jobs had made movies, Jobs is the kind of thing he might have done: It aspires to be innovative while it strives to be accessible and user-friendly. Focusing on a crucial period of Jobs's life rather than offering the standard cradle-to-grave portrait, this tries to be a somewhat unconventi...
An Averagely Average Comedy: <em>We're The Millers</em>, Reviewed.
Jason Sudeikis is a perfect fit for We're the Millers, which is a shame, since the movie isn't quite as funny as he is. During his time on Saturday Night Live, Sudeikis often played the handsome, average guy who, the longer you hung out with him, seemed stranger and stranger. He could be the straigh...
Declawed. <em>The Wolverine</em>, Reviewed.
The Wolverine feels less like a blockbuster than a well-turned piece of brand management. Everything in the film has been made with care, a certain amount of taste and intelligence, and such bland competence that what's most striking about it is how safe it is. The filmmakers have taken one of the m...
Lying and Charm: Woody Allen's <em>Blue Jasmine</em>, Reviewed.
Write and direct about 45 movies in the span of five decades, and there's a pretty good chance that certain themes will keep repeating themselves. Woody Allen's huge body of work is impressive both because of the number of gems he's produced—by dint of his work ethic, he has more great films to his ...