Set in East Germany in 1980, Christian Petzold’s superb Barbara is a transfixing Cold War thriller made even more vivid by its subtle overlay of the golden-era “woman’s picture,” the woman in question being Dr. Barbara Wolff, brilliantly played by Nina Hoss in her fifth film with the writer-director. Yet…
Just a week or so after the Pentagon reversed its ban on allowing female soldiers into combat, here’s another breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in the confused and shaggy comedy Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy —…
If Side Effects, an immensely pleasurable thriller centering on psychotropic drugs, really is Steven Soderbergh’s final big-screen film, as the director claims it will be, then he has peaked in the Valley of the Dolls. Scripted by Scott Z. Burns, who also wrote the screenplay for Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), Side…
To watch Melissa McCarthy as lovable chef Sookie St. James on seven seasons of the Gilmore Girls was to see an actress perfect the art of playing a sidekick. As best friend of the show’s protagonist, Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), McCarthy dutifully provided comic relief and a shoulder on which…
“I’ve been lucky in that I’ve always worked with writers whose voices are so specific that there really isn’t any way to recalibrate things without them being intimately involved,” says Steven Soderbergh as he swivels in a chair in the happily cluttered Flatiron District loft space that doubles as his…
Load up on your snack of choice, bucko. You have some movies to see. Here are five flicks and festivals you don’t want to miss this month. Bloody Hero International Film Festival @ Phoenix Center for the Arts Sounds like a horror fest, but don’t let the “bloody” party of…
From time to time, Zach Fowle will provide a visual guide to every day and extraordinary situations … and (because he has bad handwriting) Claire Lawton will illustrate them. Welcome to Charted Territory. Lena Dunham’s coming-of-age in New York drama-comedy has made headlines for nudity, drawn criticism for diversity, and…
Who can truly be satisfied only watching the trailer of a film before it’s released. For true film buffs this only adds to the longing and desire to get to the multiplex on release day (with tickets purchased in advance, of course). But why wait? Instead, get the jump on…
Here’s something you don’t get to say too often: It’s a shame when Paul McCartney turns up. Before McCartney arrives, rasping, puppy-eyed, and eager to have a go at the hot new grunge sound of 1993, Dave Grohl’s Sound City is an exciting, sometime illuminating documentary about how a squad…
Steven Spielberg and his jaunty little apologue about the 16th president of the United States aside, it’s no longer enough in movies for a historical figure or literary character to do simple stuff like abolish slavery or find a man of intelligence and character. Abraham Lincoln is reduced to slaying…
Being a lucky guy, I’ve been kicked in the balls only once. How did it rate on the comedy scale? Well, it was funnier than a monologue by Chelsea Handler, but not quite as hilarious as my last screening for colorectal cancer. Yet despite the fact that this act hurts…
The Great Director Walter Hill Brings a Bullet (and Ideas) to Your Head “It’s hard to get these things started,” says Walter Hill, the dean of the American action movie, speaking to me from Los Angeles. “Action films are, by their very nature, more expensive than what are sometimes called,…
Please, for his own good, somebody clap Dustin Hoffman into a chastity belt. Based on what Al Pacino suffers in Stand Up Guys, and the identical humiliations visited up Robert De Niro in Little Fockers, it seems that Hollywood will not be satisfied until it has speared a hypodermic into…
Tabu is one of those truly unique movies you can get tongue-tied just trying to describe: a tragic pop pastiche? A lyrical Old Hollywood melodrama projected on a bedsheet? A celluloid curio à la Barnum’s Fiji mermaid? At such times, it’s better to stick with a simple “wonderful.” Although the…
The end is nigh. 30 Rock-aholics will say farewell to Tina Fey’s sitcom when its one-hour season finale airs on January 31. The two-parter is the last installment of farty nerd goddess Liz Lemon’s adventures, and it promises guest appearances from Salma Hayek, Julianne Moore, T-Pain, and Nancy Pelosi, among…
erpbUpstream ColorBold, impassioned, ecstatically beautiful, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color — a lyric reverie on loss, love, and various invasions of the body — was in a class by itself at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Well, let’s say it was a class shared by a more conventional but no less…
The murder of the children should be the most disturbing thing. But for many viewers, that isn’t the case in the four films chronicling the arrest, conviction, and 18-year incarceration of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin for a crime they didn’t commit. The crime-scene photos of three young…
In Movies and TV, Alex Karpovsky Is Only Playing an Asshole. The coffee shop in New York’s Union Square might be packed on this cold afternoon, but scanning the crowded bar, it’s hard to miss Alex Karpovsky looming at the far end — even if you’re not familiar with his…
In George A. Romero’s deeply silly 1993 Stephen King adaptation The Dark Half, Timothy Hutton stars as Thad Beaumont, a writer whose highbrow pretensions don’t pay the bills. When Thad needs to make a quick buck, then, he seals himself into his study and grinds out a nihilistic thriller to…
David KrutaStacie Passon’s Concussion is a happy surprise.Sometimes, one film in a festival lineup can help to reveal another in sharper relief. To wit, one of the loveliest entries in Sundance 2013’s U.S. Dramatic Competition, James Ponsoldt’s deeply felt coming-of-age drama The Spectacular Now, looked even better after the premiere…
Rachel MorrisonMichael B. Jordan (The Wire), who’s fully up to the challenge, in Fruitvale.You could hear a pin drop during the first Sundance screening of writer-director Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale, an enormously powerful and moving debut feature based on the shooting death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant by Oakland transit police in…
Steve Wiley is Jackalope Ranch’s Parent Hood. He’s a slightly unorthodox father of five who will weigh in weekly with his mildly-rebellious views and observations. If you’d like to see how he came to write this column, watch the intro video. This week he addresses the importance of critical thinking…
