“The Man with the Iron Fists” probably comes as close as possible to replicating one of the old-school Chinese kung-fu movies that director Robert Diggs loved as a kid. Diggs grew up to become the RZA, leader of the Wu-Tang
For a movie so jammed full of stuff–nearly three hours’ worth of it–“Cloud Atlas” feels oddly empty. Written and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run,” “The International”), the picture is both madly ambitious
It’s surprising that “Paranormal Activity 4” has turned out to be as scary as it is. Five years into this phenomenally profitable franchise, you might expect the picture to be an exhausted joke, wobbling around in “Abbott and Costello Meet
“Seven Psychopaths” is a movie so devilishly well-crafted that it’s nearly consumed by its own brilliance. The writer-director, Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”), is a master of nasty laughs, and he keeps them coming … and coming. There’s barely
This movie really did creep me out, bless its scabby little head. “Sinister” is a deft assemblage of genre ready mades–haunted house, slasher, found-footage–bound together in an atmosphere of bleak portents that sometimes recalls “The Shining,” among other, admittedly better,
Time-travel movies almost always make your head hurt. Has there ever been a screenwriter who succeeded in battening down all of the genre’s rampant temporal improbabilities? By now, the most efficient way to finesse this in-built problem is simply to
“Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan is a digital refusenik. “I am constantly being asked to justify why I shoot film,” he says in the new documentary “Side by Side.” “But no one is asked to justify shooting digital.” Nolan may
The yowls of indignation that erupted around a screening of “Compliance” at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year–the agitated complaints of rank voyeurism–now seem a little overheated. The picture is unsettling, and sitting through it is sometimes uncomfortable. But
I suppose it could be said that “The Bourne Legacy” isn’t exactly the picture that fans of this billion-dollar franchise were expecting, except that I suspect it actually is. The movie is a predictable letdown. Paul Greengrass, who directed the last two
“Total Recall” is a two-hour-long chase scene that leaves you breathless. I wish I could say that’s a recommendation. Please note that I don’t. The picture is a remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, which was likewise an inflation
“The Watch” is a state-of-the-craft Hollywood comedy product, assembled by pros (Seth Rogen is one of its three writers, director Akiva Schaffer is an “SNL” veteran) and stocked with certified funnymen (Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill). The plot is
Groping for shape and substance in the long shadow of ‘The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” is an unexpected disappointment. Nolan, a director of rare intelligence and logistical skill who’s completely at home in the blockbuster idiom,
“Easy Money” is a Swedish thriller thick with drug gangs, double crosses, and desperate men grappling for a way out through the bullet storms that beset them all around. Classic crime stuff, but in this case distinguished by the emotional connections
You’d think the discipline of genre would be a tonic for Oliver Stone, quelling his well-known artistic demons. You’d think. But don’t think that going into “Savages,” Ollie’s oddly off-the-beat new movie. It’s a bloody drug-war story, set in California
Here’s a cool idea for a movie: Teenage dweeb Peter Parker weathers the taunts and pokes of high-school bullies until one day he’s bitten by some kind of magical spider and starts shooting sticky webs out of his hands and
Among other unfortunate things, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” must be the crummiest-looking big-budget movie of the year to date. The picture has the flat lighting of a TV soap opera, and its effects–brazenly fakey landscapes under highly unlikely skies–might have
Among several things that commend it–not least the baroque design and slick visuals you’d expect of any back-to-the-future mission mounted by Ridley Scott–the new “Prometheus” contains the most electrifying body-horror shock scene in recent memory. It’s part of a harrowing
What is Charlize Theron doing in this movie–such a fine actress, reduced to shopworn rants and glowers? Or the warmly charismatic Chris Hemsworth (fresh from “The Avengers”)? And how to explain the presence of Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone,
“Men in Black III” reenlists the talents of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, of course–Smith with his urban sizzle, Jones with his craggy codger sorrow–and it’s good to have them back, togged out in their black suits and shades
Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” which opened the Cannes Film Festival last week, is a movie whose pleasures are largely formal. Anderson acolytes will welcome another demonstration of his deadpan visual strategies–the locked-down shots facing off on split screens, the camera
I always had reservations about Sacha Baron Cohen’s sucker-punching humor. “Borat” was hilarious, unless you happened to be one of the trusting Romanians who were mocked as ignorant peasants in the picture. “Brüno,” the less-successful followup, also had some funny
Being a Tim Burton movie, the new “Dark Shadows” is an exercise in the sort of gothic fantabula with which the director’s fans are familiar–perhaps, by now, overly so. It is also the eighth Burton film to star Johnny Depp.
More than anything else, “The Avengers” is a triumph for Joss Whedon, who wrote the script and directed the movie and is now, after years of smaller-scale wizardry in the fantasy genre, firmly installed in the top echelon of the
“Headhunters” is a nasty little crime thriller from Norway that keeps twisting you into a state of tense uncertainty right up to the end. The movie is admirably faithful to the unsavory Jo Nesbø novel on which it’s based–a book
“The Raven” is a movie that adds up to little more than the pitch meeting that spawned it: Edgar Allan Poe, celebrated master of the macabre, does battle with a serial killer in an atmosphere of “Se7en”-like depravity. This isn’t
