leitch Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
<em>Before Midnight</em> Is Darker Than You Want It To Be
Did you want to learn that Jesse and Celine, the couple we fell in love with as they fell in love with each other in the Richard Linklater films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, have become cantankerous, unhappy middle-aged jerks? That their love has curdled into passive-aggressive routine and bare...
No Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Greta Gerwig's Breakout Role In <em>Frances Ha</em>
Greta Gerwig is not Zooey Deschanel, and we should be thankful for that. In mumblecore movies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and Baghead, and in mainstream comedies such as No Strings Attached and Arthur, Gerwig plays quirky and adorable, awkward and charming. But those traits haven't solidified into ...
Connnnnnnn! <em>Star Trek Into Darkness</em>, Reviewed.
1. I've never gotten the sense that J.J. Abrams really cares all that much about the Star Trek franchise. Abrams has said that he was far more into Star Wars—as any reasonable person would be—and that his first, well-received Star Trek was more about rebooting a franchise than any particular passion...
The 10 Films I'm Most Excited To See At The Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday, is the year's premier film festival, the launching pad in recent years for celebrated movies like The Tree of Life, No Country for Old Men, The Artist, Amour, Holy Motors and Inglourious Basterds. It's funny that Cannes takes place just as summ...
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Crap. <em>The Great Gatsby</em>, Reviewed.
1. I'm confused at to what Baz Luhrmann, the crazy over-the-top director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, would possibly want with The Great Gatsby. Well, I see why he might like it as a theoretical challenge: What ambitious filmmaker (and Luhrmann is nothing if not ambitious) wouldn't want to tr...
How The Terrific Documentary <em>Stories We Tell</em> Avoids The Cutesy
Near the beginning of Stories We Tell, director Sarah Polley's documentary about her family, her sister Joanna is asked how she feels about being part of the movie. Perfectly candid, she responds, "I guess I have this sorta instinctive reaction of, like, 'Who fucking cares about our family?'"...
<em>Iron Man 3</em>, Reviewed.
1. Other than that terrible Todd Phillips-Zach Galifianakis comedy Due Date, Robert Downey Jr. hasn't played a character other than Tony Stark or Sherlock Holmes in four years. Of all the actors who could have ended up settling into tentpole action star roles? Downey? I caught Robert Altman's Short...
Stuck In The <em>Mud</em>: I Just Don't Get Why Everyone Loves This Movie
Mud is a movie I don't get, and I don't think the problem is necessarily with me....
Michael Bay's Ode To Meatheads: <em>Pain & Gain</em>, Reviewed.
There are many movies that could have been made from the raw materials of Pain & Gain, which is based on a series of outrageous Miami New Times articles about three dimwit Florida bodybuilders who in 1994 kidnapped a rich local businessman and stripped him of all his assets. Some filmmakers, for exa...
If Only History Went Down This Smoothly. <i>42</i>, Reviewed.
People go to inspirational sports movies not in spite of their predictability but because of it. Other than romantic comedies, there's no other genre so dependent on the fact that you know exactly how they're going to play out. It doesn't help that they're usually based on true stories. These movies...
Benlands. Terrence Malick's <em>To The Wonder</em>, With A Silent Affleck, Reviewed.
1. You can make all the jokes you want about Terrence Malick's movies, particularly these last two later-era ones, whose interest in normal movie things like "plots" and "stories" and "coherent narratives" is minimal at best, but they knock my socks off. I know that both The Tree of Life and now To ...
You'll Remember This Psychopath: Brady Corbet's Star-Making Turn In <em>Simon Killer </em>
When we first meet Simon, he's not unlike a lot of twentysomething guys you knew after college. Recently graduated, cash-strapped, withdrawn and sorta lost, the lead of Simon Killer finds himself crashing in Paris at a family friend's place, wanting to escape New York and the girlfriend, Michelle, w...
Roger Ebert Is Dead
Legendary movie critic Roger Ebert has passed away at the age of 70. He had been battling cancer for the past decade. If you have time today, do go read Will Leitch on his correspondence with Ebert from a couple years back (a sampling: "I would love to say that I enjoyed fornicating on the Daily Ill...
For The Next Remake, Just Add More Blood: <i>Evil Dead</i>, Reviewed.
1. A good rule of thumb: If you are holding a book in your hands and you notice that someone has gone to the trouble of shutting that book with barbed wire, do not attempt to open this book. If you do open this book, then do not read from it–particularly when previous patrons of the Satan Public Lib...
I Have No Idea What This <i>Upstream Color</i> Movie Is About, But It Is Awesome
To make a list of things I do not understand about Shane Carruth's Upstream Color would be to simply list everything that happens in the movie. But lemme try out some questions on you anyway: Who is the man who kidnaps a woman and drugs her by feeding her a worm? And why does that worm cause her to ...
Danny Boyle Mesmerizes Himself. <em>Trance</em>, Reviewed.
For director Danny Boyle, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. With each genre of movie he makes, you get the sense that he wants to be sure it's the most demonstrative of its kind ever. Trainspotting was the druggiest movie ever. 28 Days Later was the zombie-iest movie ever. Slumdog Millionaire...
The Eight Most Groan-Worthy Lines In <em>GI Joe: Retaliation</em>
GI Joe: Retaliation is pretty bad. You don't need me to tell you that. It's not completely horrible: There's a cool sequence involving ninjas fighting each other during an avalanche, one special effects scene has London blowing up real awesome-like, and The Rock continues to be the one consistent ac...
An Epic That Stumbles. <em>The Place Beyond The Pines</em>, Reviewed.
Director Derek Cianfrance's last film, Blue Valentine, was a crushing study of a couple (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) falling apart. It was beautifully made and well acted—I loved it—but the rawness of the emotions and the ambition of the structure (cycling between the present and t...
<em>Room 237</em> Will Make You Love <em>The Shining</em> All Over Again
One of the saddest things about the death of a favorite filmmaker is realizing that you'll probably never see any new movie from him ever again. When popular musicians die, they always leave material lying around that their estates can spruce up and put out for the fans. (Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, ...
Dour <em>Die Hard</em>: <em>Olympus Has Fallen</em>, Reviewed.
If you're going to make a movie where the White House is destroyed and the fate of the American government hangs in the balance, it at least ought to be fun to watch. That may sound sacrilegious—I'm pretty sure even the Tea Party doesn't want Washington overrun by Korean terrorists—but after sitting...