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"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...
Killing Jennifer Lawrence: <em>The Hunger Games: Catching Fire</em>, Reviewed.
1. The first Hunger Games movie was entertaining enough, but still plodding, awkward, and weighed down with so much exposition that you found yourself wishing everyone would stop sketching out the rules of this universe and get down to mourning all the dead children falling from the skies. The movie...
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,...
Hammer Of The Gods: <em>Thor: The Dark World</em>, Reviewed.
1. It's funny how many of the Avengers are stiffs. Sure, Iron Man is all wry and meta, and The Hulk, particularly as played by Mark Ruffalo, has genuine pathos and pain, along with a dark sense of humor about his whole predicament. Then there are the rest of them. Captain America is a cheesy dope w...
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...
<em>Dallas Buyers Club</em> Is Gay History For Straight People
In his blistering, deeply moving Grantland essay about 12 Years A Slave, Wesley Morris lays waste to decades of white-guilt piety in films about racism and slavery—A Time To Kill, Cry Freedom, Glory—in a single sentence: "They've been appeals to white audiences by white characters talking to other w...
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...
Anti-<em>Gravity</em>. <em>All Is Lost</em>, Reviewed.
1. I never got to write about Gravity in this space—Grierson took that for us—but I found it as terrific as most people did. Dizzying, awesome, disorienting, terrifying: It's earned all the praise it has received. But I couldn't get past one thing: Didn't the Sandra Bullock character's backstory se...
Cruelty Unchained. <em>Twelve Years A Slave</em>, Reviewed.
1. Twelve Years a Slave is a devastating movie experience, one that will leave you shaking with anger. This is not an attempt to shed new light on the shame of slavery, or, heaven forbid, a winky postmodern re-imagining of slavery as a self-referential cinematic revenge fantasy. (After seeing Twelve...
Contained Space: <em>Captain Phillips,</em> Reviewed.
1. There's a moment in Paul Greengrass' United 93, one of the best films of the last decade, in which we are invited not to sympathize with the hijackers of Flight 93, exactly, but at least take a look at them as humans, if just for a moment. They're monsters, but they're people, on that plane, too,...
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 ...
Zigging And Zagging And Then Ending: <em>Don Jon</em>, Reviewed
1. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of those actors for whom I find it nearly impossible not to root. He has an inherent, innate likability about him that doesn't seem forced, calculated or manufactured; he's a labrador puppy you have beers with. Now, I don't know anything about Joseph Gordon-Levitt in r...
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...
American Nightmare: <em>Blue Caprice</em>, Reviewed
1. The John Muhammed/Lee Malvo Beltway shootings in October 2002 continue to occupy a specific segment of the American nightmare. The twisted, horrible genius of the killings was their selective randomness: The Beltway snipers chose their targets specifically so that people would believe they could...
The Best And Worst Of Summer Movies: An A.J. Daulerio Report
According to Grierson and Leitch, summer movie season is over. I agree. Here's my report. ...
The 16 Fall Movies You Should Be Excited About: A Guide
Labor Day is the signpost every year that the sugary summer junk is behind us and that the nutritious square meal of awards season has finally arrived. That's the theory, anyway: In actuality, summer movies like Before Midnight and Fruitvale Station will be as well-received as any Oscar bait, and th...
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, ...