Search for 2013

The To Do List grafts the raunchiness of today's R-rated comedic fare onto the structure of an '80s sex romp. The film feels a little like what might happen if the producers of films like Bridesmaids found a lost John Hughes script and adapted it f...

Trance is a member of the movie category defined by the likes of Shutter Island and Inception - films in which the concept of "reality" is flexible and the reliability of the narrative is indeterminate. Even at the end, once all has been explained ...

Let me begin by stating that I cannot recommend Under the Skin to audiences in search of a mainstream movie experience. This film, a cryptic adaptation of Michel Faber's novel, is all about mood and setting. It's as existential as a sci-fi/horror f...

As if it wasn't bad enough that Twilight defanged vampires, turning them into whiny emo Harlequin romance heroes, now Warm Bodies has done something similar for zombies. Granted, that latter evisceration is more challenging than the former. After a...

As the end credits for The Way Way Back started to roll, I found myself wistfully wishing there could be a sequel to this movie. It's not because the narrative feels incomplete or because there are dangling plot threads. Instead, it's simply becaus...

Of all the cast members of the former Friends, Jennifer Aniston is by far the most successful. But there's no correlation between "success" and "quality." For a while, Aniston showed a willingness to try different things and experiment (her high po...

"Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." - Harry Burns (Billy Crystal), When Harry Met Sally That memorable line, penned by Nora Ephron and spoken by Billy Crystal, has become the template for more than one p...

White House Down is what it's advertised to be: a Roland Emmerich Film. Those familiar with the director's work won't be surprised by anything in the movie. It follows the Emmerich template: a spectacle-tinged, compelling setup; a dumb, disappointi...

Hayao Miyazaki has long been viewed as the world's premiere animator. His work was so revered by the founders of Pixar that, after taking over Disney's animation department, they worked out a deal with whereby the studio would distribute Miyazaki's...

When one thinks of a Martin Scorsese film, the first images that come to mind are dark, violent, serious ones. His most celebrated movies are Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Departed - all intense, uncompromising samples of cinema at ...