Movie Reviews

'The Master' Review: Egotists and the Cultists Who Love Them

With its expansive 70 mm images, The Master almost pounces on you as it announces its epic scope and ambition – even though the impressive vistas of the sea don’t have anything to do with the heart of the film. In its intelligent, chilly essence, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is...

Herzog's "Into The Abyss": Crime, Punishment, Humanity

Dennis Farina as "Joe May" and Other Gangsters We Love

"The Rum Diary": Johnny Depp Plays His Old Friend Hunter Thompson

One thing (among thousands) you can say about Johnny Depp: he’s loyal to his friends, to the point of veneration. He was the driving force behind Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary, rescuing the never-finished 1959 novel from the author’s basement while researching his role as Thompson himself in Te...

NYFF Review: Paradise Lost 3 and Its Serpent's Tail of Media

The legal bargain that freed the West Memphis 3 after 18 years in prison is Lewis Carroll by way of Orwell. They proclaimed their innocence in court while pleading guilty to the murders they were accused of – a trick that prevents them from suing the state of Arkansas. (And what a suit that would ha...

Nick Broomfield’s Portrait of Sarah Palin, Mean Girl

If you’d paid no attention to political news in the past three years and had never seen Roger and Me, maybe Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill’s Sarah Palin: You Betcha! might seem fresh. As it is, this slight, sometimes amusing documentary is familiar in too many ways, from yesterday’s facts to the...

"'Moneyball" Review: Brad Pitt, Please Stop Spitting; Otherwise Love Your Film

Every now and then while watching Moneyball, two words would pop into my mind: “Stop spitting!” Brad Pitt spits into a paper cup, players spit on the field – less than in real baseball, but enough.

Review: Ryan Gosling in the Psycho-Action Thriller "Drive"

Drive would be a completely different, more ordinary film without Ryan Gosling. Watch him saunter across a parking lot in a blood-splattered jacket – not his blood, but his responsibility – his impassive face and his calm, coiled body saying everything there is to say. He’s a guy who does what he ne...

Cough, Cough! Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Matt Damon in Soderbegh's Plagued "Contagion"

I guess it never hurts to be reminded to cover your mouth when you cough, but Steven Soderbergh’s plague-thriller Contagion should have been so much more than a star-filled health warning.