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The 10 Films I’m Most Excited To See At The Sundance Film Festival
Every year, the Sundance Film Festival shows about 200 features, documentaries and shorts. Last year, the festival was the launching pad for Oscar-nominated films Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Sessions, and Searching for Sugar Man, not to mention that it premiered modest indie hits like Sleepwalk...
Shooting Blanks: <em>Gangster Squad</em>, Reviewed.
If a group of 12-year-old boys wanted to make a movie in their backyard, there's a good chance it might end up something like Gangster Squad. Sure, it wouldn't have the flashy production design and big names, but it would definitely share the same adolescent mindset. With its tough talk and bang-ban...
<em>Lincoln</em> Hogs: Grierson & Leitch's Rapid Reaction To Today's Oscar Nominations
The Oscar nominations just came out, announced by Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone. There were surprises and oddities and the usual silliness. Also, now we know that Lincoln is going to win everything. Here are our quickest thoughts....
Chaps Don't Get A Fella What They Used To: We Predict The 2013 Academy Award Nominees
Thursday morning, Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone will get up about seven hours earlier than they usually do to announce the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. This will be stupid and pointless and watched by millions of idiots, myself giddily among them. The Oscars are dumb, but as far as awards ...
The Grierson & Leitch Best Films of 2012: Nos. 5-1
It's the final week of 2012, so we're wrapping the year up the way movie people are supposed to wrap the year up: Lists! Wednesday, we each gave our five worst movies of 2012. 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 2012: Nos. 10-6
It's the final week of 2012, so we're wrapping the year up the way movie people are supposed to wrap the year up: Lists! Yesterday, we each gave our five worst movies of 2012. Today, we each count down our No. 6-10 best movies of the year, and Friday, we finish off with each of our top five....
The Grierson & Leitch Worst Movies Of 2012
It's the final week of 2012, so we're wrapping the year up the way movie people are supposed to wrap the year up: Lists! Today, we each give our five worst movies of 2012. Tomorrow, we count down each of our No. 6-10 best movies of the year, and Friday, we finish off with each of our top five....
Jacked Creature: In Praise Of Tom Cruise's Relentless Intensity
There are lots of perfectly understandable reasons not to like Tom Cruise. His attitude about antidepressants. The Oprah couch-jumping episode. That church he attends. And, outside of his personal life, he's made tons of questionable professional choices, yes....
Resistance Is Futile. <em>Les Misérables</em>, Reviewed
As someone who hasn't read the Victor Hugo novel and is only vaguely familiar with the musical based on it, I can't say I went into director Tom Hooper's version of Les Misérables with any expectations or cultural baggage. I suspect that's part of the reason why the film worked for me—or, at the ver...
Creaks And Reeks. Judd Apatow's <em>This Is 40</em>, Reviewed.
In recent years, critics have pegged writer-director Judd Apatow as the next James L. Brooks. That's meant to be high praise. Brooks—the director of movies like Broadcast News who, like Apatow, transitioned from television to film—managed to create sophisticated romantic comedies that mixed humor an...
Quentin Tarantino, Slave To His Habits: <em>Django Unchained</em>, Reviewed
1. Django Unchained is giddily entertaining, powerful, confident filmmaking by a guy who keeps finding new tricks up his sleeve with every movie. It's a big, sprawling statement that throws everything at the wall and sees what sticks, which has always been one of the strengths of Quentin Tarantino, ...
In Sickness And In Health. <em>Amour</em>, Reviewed.
When my wife and I got married, I gave a toast where I laid out all I wanted for us: A long, healthy, happy life. Not great riches, not great success—just a fulfilling marriage that would sustain us both for the rest of our lives. So far, we've been lucky, and I'm grateful for that, but as anyone wh...
A Suffocating Triumph: <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em>, Reviewed
1. I've always thought the best compliment you can give a movie is that, while it's playing, you forget not only that you are watching a movie, but also that you are a person with a life that was going on before the movie and will continue going on afterward. These are the transformative films, the ...
The Deep Breath Before The Plunge. <em>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey</em>, Reviewed.
1. It's always important to remember that the first film of any trilogy—particularly one that has to not only introduce a bunch of new characters but take time to remind us of all the people/dwarves/elves/wizards we'd forgotten in the nine years since we last saw them—is always going to be the slowe...
Grierson & Leitch's Year In Review: Your Favorite Movie Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad
Yes, many people are already writing their Top 10 movie lists for 2012. We're saving ours for the last week of the year, but while we wait for this full, rich, and weird movie year to end, we're looking back at certain highlights and lowlights. Today: We look at a financially successful movie, a leg...
Just Like <em>Heaven's Gate</em>: Why Didn't The <em>Lord Of The Rings</em> Series Fail?
Next week, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens, setting in motion another Tolkien trilogy from director Peter Jackson that will end in the summer of 2014. Everyone's wondering whether these Hobbit movies can live up to the Lord of the Rings films, whose combination of commercial and critical suc...
Grierson & Leitch's Year In Review: The Year's Worst Scenes
Yes, many people are already writing their Top 10 movie lists for 2012. We're saving ours for the last week of the year, but while we wait for this full, rich, and weird movie year to end, we're going to start looking back at certain highlights. Today, it's our least-favorite individual scenes....
Bill Murray: A Traitor To His Crass. <em>Hyde Park on Hudson</em>, Reviewed.
1. Everything about Hyde Park on Hudson feels like it's taking place in a wax museum. Actually, that's not giving it enough credit: It's more like the Hall of Presidents robotic displays at Walt Disney World....
Grierson & Leitch's Year In Review: The Year's Best Scenes
Yes, many people are already writing their Top 10 movie lists for 2012. We're saving ours for the last week of the year, but while we wait for this full, rich, and weird movie year to end, we're going to start looking back at certain highlights. Today, it's our favorite individual scenes....
Bill Murray Is Better Than The Oscars
About 10 months ago, Gawker's Rich Juzwiak put together on his personal site what has to be the most useful, repeatedly entertaining animated GIF I've ever seen. It's simple, basic, and genius: merely a look at the reaction shots of every Best Actor and Best Actress nominees in the seconds after the...