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<em>Night Moves</em> and Personal Apocalypses: The Films Of Kelly Reichardt
None of director Kelly Reichardt's films has made over $1 million at the box office. That seems about right. It's not that her superb dramas don't deserve a bigger audience. But because they're so intimate, so understated, they feel like secrets: the cinematic equivalent of the bootlegs die-hard...
The <em>Sleeping Beauty</em> Reboot You Never Wanted: <em>Maleficent</em>, Reviewed.
Back in 2006, Patton Oswalt had a standup bit where he fantasized about going back in time and killing George Lucas so he'd never make the Star Wars prequels. In the imaginary conversation, Lucas tries to sell Oswalt on those reviled films by assuring the comedian that all the things he digs about t...
Time Is Not A Flat Circle: <em>X-Men: Days Of Future Past</em>, Reviewed
1. X-Men: Days of Future Past feels like one of those special-edition comic books that takes all the characters we know and love, drops them in some sort of parallel universe (so the storyline's ramifications don't affect the current canon timeline), and shakes up both the plot and those characters ...
A Tolerable Adam Sandler Movie! <em>Blended</em>, Reviewed.
In the late '90s, when Adam Sandler decided to transition from imbecile par excellence to romantic lead, he teamed up with Drew Barrymore to make The Wedding Singer, a very silly and very lovable '80s comedy that brought a softer, more human side to his Happy Gilmore/Billy Madison persona. That fi...
Kill All Humans, Or At Least Mute Them: <em>Godzilla,</em> Reviewed.
1. The go-to example for critics complaining about big-budget summer blockbusters today—and how they've devolved from some past, theoretical peak—is Steven Spielberg's Jaws. One of that 1975 film's many genius innovations was to hold off, as long as possible, on ever letting us see the shark. The mo...
In Praise Of <em>Sugar</em>, The Anti-<em>Million Dollar Arm</em>
Hoop Dreams has haunted me ever since I saw it 20 years ago. The story of two black Chicago high school basketball players hoping to make the NBA and escape their inner-city lives, the film ends with their pro dreams very much in doubt. Decades later, I still remember the last thing William Gat...
Cannes Film Festival 2014: 10 Movies We Can't Wait To See
The Cannes Film Festival kicks off today, setting in motion 10 days of premieres of some of the most heavily anticipated movies of the year. Inside Llewyn Davis and Blue Is the Warmest Color got their start there last year—not to mention Best Foreign Language Oscar winner The Great Beauty—and ce...
I Guess This Is Growing Up: <em>Neighbors</em>, Reviewed
1. Neighbors is your typical Seth Rogen/Apatowian coming-of-age comedy, in which an overgrown manboy learns that he has to curtail his childish pursuits of weed, video games, and general irresponsibility to become a functional member of society. (They've now cranked out a decade's worth of movies ab...
(500) Hours of Spidey: <em>The Amazing Spider-Man 2</em>, Reviewed
1. There's a moment in 2004's original Spider-Man 2, directed by Sam Raimi, that represents the peak of what a comic-book movie can do. It's when an unmasked Spider-Man attempts to save a (geographically impossible, but no matter) elevated NYC subway train from careening off the platform and into th...
Our 10 Most Anticipated Summer Movies (And The Five We're Dreading)
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to blow shit up. Summer-movie season begins in earnest on Friday with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and we're excited for another go-round of sequels and spectacle, although this is also the time for exciting counter-programming involving small-scale dramas with Oscar ho...
The Lone Avenger: <em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</em>, Reviewed
When Marvel pooled its superhero talent for 2012's The Avengers, the rationale was obvious: If Iron Man or Thor or the Incredible Hulk could top the box office solo, just think how massive a summer blockbuster with all of them would be. And although the result was indeed a mega-hit—it's the all-time...
Kick 'Em All: How <em>The Raid 2</em> Turns Violence Into Art
Violence is such a constant in movies that we rarely appreciate when it's done well. The smallest hint of sexual content or nudity lands a film an R or a dreaded NC-17, but summer action blockbusters can inundate us with shootouts, explosions, car crashes, and off-screen deaths, and as long as th...
Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational: <em>Muppets Most Wanted</em>, Reviewed
When Roger Ebert gave The Naked Gun a rave review back in 1988, this is how he praised it: "You laugh, and then you laugh at yourself for laughing. Some of the jokes are incredibly stupid. Most of them are dumber than dumb." Muppets Most Wanted is that way, too. This sequel to the very enjoyable ...
Fuck This Shit. <em>Bad Words</em>, Reviewed.
Jerry Seinfeld has famously stayed away from swearing in his standup, insisting that cursing to get a laugh is easy. Even if many thousands of comedians have proved that, cheap or not, cussing for laughs can still be hilarious, he does have a point. There are few things less funny than sitting thr...
<em>Nymphomaniac</em> Has Repulsive Hardcore Sex And Is Made By A Crazy Man. It's Great.
Every Lars von Trier movie, deep down, is about how depressed Lars von Trier is and how much Lars von Trier hates himself, which is another reason it's amazing how gleefully deranged and entertaining each of his movies keeps turning out to be. He is the world's strangest guilt artist. He keeps findi...
Who Was The Best Oscars Host Of The Past 25 Years?
11. James Franco and Anne Hathaway (2011). Always beware of courting the "young," particularly two young people who are basically 50-year-olds in grownup clothing. Franco, stripped of all self-referential schtick, turned into an empty suit with nowhere to hide, and Hathaway's desperate attempts to p...
Grierson & Leitch Predict The Oscar Categories You Actually Care About
Yesterday, to help you out with your pool, Grierson made predictions in all the technical Oscar categories. Today, we both make our predictions for the eight major categories, the ones you actually care about. Let's go to it....
Your Handy Guide For What Will Win The Oscar Categories No One Understands
One of the more competitive Oscars campaigns in recent years culminates Sunday, when millions of people will gather around their televisions and think, "Ellen DeGeneres is a pretty dull host, but at least she's not Seth MacFarlane." Tomorrow, Will and I will do our predictions for the eight majo...
I Wouldn't Buy This For A Dollar. <em>RoboCop</em>, Reviewed.
No matter what you think of director Paul Verhoeven's movies, the one thing you could never call them is dull. Whether it's Showgirls or Total Recall, Basic Instinct or Starship Troopers, they've got this giddy, slightly demented intensity that makes them feel campy, exuberant, alive. A Dutch filmm...
Block Party: <em>The Lego Movie</em>, Reviewed
1. The Lego Movie is way more fun than it has any need to be. Though it never quite reaches the lunatic levels of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it has that film's same hellzapoppin' zeal, that willingness to go anywhere for a joke and that absolute insistence that it must never, ever slow down. The Lego ...