Movie Reviews

Amenabar's "Agora" Rings Hollow Despite Visual Shock and Awe

Alejandro Amenabar's "Agora" contains a dense plot littered with historical details of Egyptian society during the Roman Empire, but none of them can save the movie from having the fleeting qualities of a high school science class.

"Prophet" Portends Success: Audiard's Arty Mob Film

If James Toback's petty-criminal tale "Fingers" inspired Jacques Audiard's previous "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," it's Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" that looms over his latest "A Prophet." Successfully balancing art-film portraiture with a gangster picture's plot, the film may be one of the mor...

No Sense or Sensibility: Lee's "Woodstock" Undercooked

Considering the iconic event at its center, the most surprising aspect of "Taking Woodstock" lies with the decision to make it into a rather flat comedy. Even with the ever-versatile Ang Lee behind the camera, this messy historical fiction plays like a two hour "Saturday Night Live" sketch, and not ...

Campion's Prudish "Star" Needs More Sizzle

This might sound horribly simplistic, but Jane Campion's "Bright Star" desperately needs a sex scene. The movie puts such prominent focus on the romantic attraction shared by two characters -- early nineteenth century poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his neighbor, budding fashion designer Fanny Bra...

Neither Misfire Nor Return To Form: Coppola's Competent "Tetro"

Neither complete misfire nor triumphant return to form, Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro" works as a competent family drama right up until the messy final act. If a first-time filmmaker had directed this stylish black-and-white-and-sometimes-color melodrama, it might gain some notice for suggesting gre...

Variety Reviews "Up"

Of Time and the Country: Olivier Assayas's "Summer Hours"

Early in Olivier Assayas's elegant and elegiac "Summer Hours," grown siblings sit at a table with their aging mother outside their family's country home. Paging through a book of their late great-uncle's art, they notice a picture from generations ago of people sitting at the very same table, in the...

Kicking and Screaming: Carlos Cuaron's "Rudo y Cursi"

"Rudo y Cursi," the debut film by Carlos Cuaron, has a bit of everything. Comedy, drama, satire, nostalgia, sports, music, city, country, tits, ass -- all you could ever want, really. The first film produced under the Cha Cha Cha shingle -- the union of Mexico's cuddly auteurist trinity Alfonso Cuar...

Unholy Redeemer: Erick Zonca's "Julia"

"Julia" is your typical tale of redemption, even as it thrashes against the sentimentality such a designation implies. As fearlessly played by Tilda Swinton -- so often cast in roles for her androgynous appeal or otherworldly, reptilian bloodlessness, but here afforded leeway to get down and dirty -...