Search for 2011

Long ago, the concept of "money" was devised as a means by which commerce could be simplified - after all, it's easier to carry around some kind of marker than cows or cattle or bags of grain. As society has evolved, however, so has the way in whic...

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a quiet, non-judgmental character study that takes us into the mind and heart of a cult survivor. By flashing back and forth in time periods between the "present" and the "recent past," the film builds a picture of the t...

Simon West's The Mechanic is a loose remake of the 1972 film starring Charles Bronson. In addition to updating various aspects of the story, the filmmakers have changed elements (most notably the ending) in an attempt to make it more audience frien...

No one could ever accuse Lars von Trier of being uninteresting. Even his most maddening, inaccessible films are compulsively watchable, if only to see what will happen next. Melancholia represents von Trier at his best and worst. Visually and thema...

From time-to-time, I suppose we all succumb to daydreams of what it might be like to have lived during a different, perhaps simpler era. Filmmaker Woody Allen, whose cinematic recipes have often incorporated more than a pinch of nostalgia, embraces...

Ghost Protocol is the fourth big screen Mission: Impossible movie and the closest the 15-year old franchise has gotten to being an unofficial James Bond adventure. Globe-trotting and action-saturated, the movie offers everything a good 007 yarn sho...

Moneyball illustrates what can happen when a non-fiction book that's more about ideas and processes is translated into a feature film. There's a lot of fascinating information in Moneyball (although, to be fair, it's questionable how much interest...

The Muppets is a rare family film likely to appeal more to parents than to their offspring. Although it's true that most kids today know a thing or two about Jim Henson's creations (the movie's premise - that they have vanished into obscurity since...

At first glance, My Week with Marilyn might seem like a salacious behind-the-scenes look at a mostly forgotten (yet high profile at the time) movie that had its share of off-camera drama. However, a closer examination of the film reveals an incompl...

Romantic comedies are a little like junk food: they're not healthy or sophisticated but, when made right, there's something addictive about their tasty familiarity. Going in, you know what you're going to get. There are no surprises, nasty or other...