Movies

Is there 'hope' in Hollywood?

Three controversial (and sure to be Oscar-nominated) films tackle race in the age of Obama
Buoyed by President Barack Obama's campaign slogan, many had hopes for change after his election.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 29, 2010

Oscar predictions 2010

With 10 Best Picture noms, is Oscar up in the air? Our critic predicts.
After years of shrinking audiences and low-grossing Best Picture nominees, the Academy this year is hedging its bets.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 29, 2010

Review: Legion

God is fed up with all the bullshit
What are angel wings made of? Why, bulletproof titanium with razor-sharp tips to slice open the entrails of sinners.

By ZAK JASON | January 27, 2010

Review: Mystery Team

Those meddling kids
Indie comedy has it tough in the marketplace, so though it's no fun to pan the first feature by the Derrick Comedy troupe, neither was it fun to watch Mystery Team .

By BETSY SHERMAN | January 26, 2010

Review: Extraordinary Measures

The business of who lives and who dies
Most parents would go to great lengths to save a child in peril, but would they find a cure for a terminal disease?

By TOM MEEK | January 27, 2010

It bites
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson dons a pink tutu and wings as Derek, a hockey player who's earned the nickname "The Tooth Fairy" for his knack for knocking out opposing players' bicuspids on the ice.

By BRETT MICHEL | January 26, 2010

Review: A Town Called Panic

Bilge from Belgium
This stop-motion comedy from Belgian filmmakers Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar is the anti– Fantastic Mr. Fox — its lack of visual and psychological nuance is, merci, quite deliberate.

By BETSY SHERMAN | January 20, 2010

Review: Crazy Heart

Country discomfort: Jeff Bridges can't be beat
Every great actor has at least one washed-up, alcoholic, award-winning-country-singer role in him. For Jeff Bridges, it's "Bad" Blake, a former C&W legend now reduced to playing bowling alleys and dive bars in tiny towns in the Southwest.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 26, 2010

Review: The White Ribbon

Children of the götterdämmerung: Shades of gray in Michael Haneke's White Ribbon
The White Ribbon starts with a black screen and an old man's voice (Ernst Jacobi, who played Hitler in Jan Troell's Hamsun and in a BBC mini-series) relating a series of mysterious accidents and crimes that occurred in the German village where he was a schoolteacher the year before the outbreak of World War I.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 13, 2010

Review: The Lovely Bones

This Salmon won't spawn
When it comes to immortality and the afterlife, movies tend to get sticky.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 13, 2010

Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Ledger-demain: Gilliam leaves nothing to the Imaginarium
Few filmmakers have suffered from the life-imitates-art phenomenon as has Terry Gilliam.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 11, 2010

Review: Youth In Revolt

Michael Cera hardly revolutionary
Juno continues to poison American independent cinema.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 06, 2010

Review: In Search of Beethoven

Deaf jam
Phil Grabsky's exhaustive documentary doesn't exactly dispel any stereotypes about Beethoven's being a shaggy genius prone to rages.

By SHAULA CLARK | January 06, 2010

Review: Daybreakers

Vampires, weakened
For evidence of the breakdown of the capitalist system, look no farther than the proliferation of vampire and zombie movies.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 06, 2010

Lite at the end of the tunnel?

Fun and games in post-apocalyptic Hollywood
If you had enough of the end of the world with 2012 , you might be relieved when it comes to 2010.

By PETER KEOUGH | January 04, 2010

Review: It's Complicated

Indeed it is
It's complicated, and so are my feelings about Nancy Meyer's predictable and overlong boomer-bait rom-com.

By MIKE MILIARD | December 22, 2009

Review: Nine

Rob Marshall continues his assault on good taste
It doesn't get much farther from human experience than this: an adaptation of a Broadway production adapting a film ( 8-1/2 ) about a filmmaker who imagines making a film.

By PETER KEOUGH | December 22, 2009

Review: Broken Embraces [Los Abrazos Rotos]

Broken promises: Pedro Almodóvar's open Embraces
No filmmaker generates narrative like Pedro Almodóvar. Five minutes into Broken Embraces and he's got half a dozen potential storylines spinning.

By PETER KEOUGH | December 22, 2009

Review: Sherlock Holmes

Boys will be boys
In its own way an ideal holiday blockbuster for the moderately educated, the new light-footed overhaul of Sherlock Holmes is three parts self-satisfied mixer to one part hard storytelling, and if anything, the film's popular trailers should have deterred you from expecting strong drink.

By MICHAEL ATKINSON | December 22, 2009