Search for 2012

Safe House is an overlong, underwhelming knock-off of The Bourne Identity - another generic spy thriller in which the "bad guy" (a traitor) is the good guy (because he's at war against corruption) and the "good guys" (government agents) are the bad...

The classified ad reads: "WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before. " To be clear, Safety Not Guarant...

Arguably, the biggest hurdle to clear for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is its title. Let's be frank - how many viewers will be excited by the prospect of seeing a movie about salmon fishing in the Middle East? And the name is neither allegorical nor...

Savages is a drug-fueled crime delirium that doesn't break much new ground in the genre but offers a volatile concoction of violence, heroism, and amorality that is compulsively watchable. The director is Oliver Stone, a filmmaker often associated ...

Someone could write a compelling thesis about humanity's obsession with the apocalypse. Over the years, the cinema has exploited this affinity, most often in disaster movies. Lately, however, there has been a trend toward end-of-the-world films tha...

Back toward the beginning of her career, a then- 29 year old Helen Hunt appeared in a movie called The Waterdance. The film dealt frankly with the way disability impacted the sexual relationship between her character and the one played by Eric Stol...

For about 75 minutes, Seven Psychopaths is a rollicking good movie - kinetic, clever, funny, and brutal. Then, inexplicably, it falls apart. Perhaps writer/director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) didn't know how to end it, or perhaps his attempts to d...

Silver Linings Playbook is a quirky adult romantic comedy that goes beyond the standard rhythms of the genre. Although this is a funny movie, there's an edge to the humor, not unlike what we have become accustomed to in the work of Alexander Payne....

Warning: Spoilers! (Not that anyone will care.) When it comes to direct-to-video productions, no genre is a more prevalent participant than horror. If one considers how bad many of the theatrical releases of this sort are, it boggles th...

Someone finally figured out a way to make the concept of "found footage" interesting, and it's by incorporating it into the film's overall scope rather than employing it as the governing factor. Sinister is an intense horror film that starts out ma...