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Excellence, Not Ego: Remembering The Great Philip Seymour Hoffman
What surprised me the most when I heard the news of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death was that his passing ran so counter to the reputation he had earned over his 25 years as an actor. Dependable, intelligent, consistently remarkable: These are the qualities we had come to associate with Hoffman's...
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...
Your Grierson & Leitch Oscar Nomination Predictions
Thursday morning, the Oscar nominations come out. To mentally prepare you, here are our predictions for the eight major categories....
Our 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2014
Now that all the year-end best-of lists are finally over, it's time for some lists that look forward rather than backward. 2014 has a lot to live up to; 2013 was one of the best movie years in recent memory....
The Grierson & Leitch Best Films of 2013: Nos. 5-1
It's the final week of 2013, so we're wrapping the year up the way movie people are supposed to wrap the year up: Lists! Friday, we each gave our five worst films of 2013. Yesterday, we each counted down our No. 6-10 best movies of the year. Today, we finish off with our top fives....
The Grierson & Leitch Best Films of 2013: Nos. 10-6
It's the final week of 2013, so we're wrapping the year up the way movie people are supposed to wrap the year up: Lists! Friday, we each gave our five worst movies of 2013. Today, we each count down our No. 6-10 best movies of the year, and tomorrow, we finish off with each of our top five....
The Worst Films 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 the five worst films each of us saw this year, in alp...
Why That Dumb AIDS Tweet Was So Captivating
Will Leitch, senior writer at Sports On Earth and founder of Deadspin, is doing his yearly fill-in for Drew Magary on today's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo. (Here is 2011's version, and here's 2012's.) Leitch has written four books. Find more of his business at his Twitter feed....
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....
What You're Expecting, But More So: <em>Anchorman 2</em>, Reviewed.
1. When did the tide start to turn on Ron Burgundy? It's a strange thing: Since Will Ferrell introduced his greatest creation in 2004, there has been a relentless drumbeat among the public to bring him back, from cameos on Conan to rampant interview requests to the ultimate point where Ferrell and P...
A Dog Distracted By A Squirrel: <em>American Hustle</em>, Reviewed.
1. David O. Russell is a director who doesn't know what he's doing. I say this with legitimate, if cautious, admiration. Some of our most celebrated directors have been incorrigible perfectionist assholes: David Fincher makes actors do hundreds of takes; Kubrick sent crazy (but not wrong) letters to...
Completely Operational. <em>Her</em>, Reviewed.
1. "Don't knock masturbation," says Woody Allen's Alvy Singer in Annie Hall. "It's sex with someone I love." Her is many things, but at its heart, it's a clear-minded, alternately romantic and fatalist look at what, precisely, we are falling in love with when we are "falling in love." Falling in lov...
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...
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...