Neil Jordan’s “Byzantium,” the filmmaker’s first return to vampires since 1994’s massive Cruise-Pitt success “Interview with the Vampire,” is the best kind of genre film, which is to say the kind of genre film that makes you forget it’s a genre film. Yes, we’ve encountered variations of this story onscreen dozens of times before, but […]
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Stephen Walker and Sally George’s 2007 documentary “Young @ Heart,” about a chorus of Massachusetts senior citizens who perform pop covers, was so genuinely moving and respectful of its subjects that I suppose it was just a matter of time before a fiction filmmaker hijacked the premise for a manipulative, cloying feature. That’s exactly what
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Alice Winocour’s “Augustine,” which chronicles the pioneering 19th Century French neurologist Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s work with the titular patient, a seizing 19-year-old kitchenmaid initially diagnosed of “female hysteria,” is less about medical breakthroughs than it is about pent-up sexual desire. Despite his stoic gaze, Dr. Charcot (Vincent Lindon) is consumed by Augustine’s (Soko’s) sly flirtatiousness
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Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. Last year, this was a highly successful frame, with the surprise breakouts of “Ted” and “Magic Mike.” I’m doubtful we’re in for a repeat, however, because last weekend’s openers, “Monsters University” and “World War Z,”
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Pixar is widely considered the industry leader in computer animated films, but the studio’s immaculate image detail and inventive character design are not what earned them that position. Instead, people love Pixar more for their narrative accomplishments, that they show us things we’ve never seen before (or ever expected to see)—a balloon-powered house flying to
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As I watched Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring,” based on the true story of a quintet of teenagers who robbed the Hollywood Hills homes of the rich and famous by employing the surprisingly unsophisticated method of opening unlocked doors, I wondered whether the film was trying to be a hyperbolic cultural critique a la Harmony
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Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. After two weekends of wildly missing the mark, my accuracy improved last weekend, albeit not to the extent that I wanted it to. I lowballed on both “Man of Steel” and “This is the End,”
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First off, apologies that this is running on Thursday and not the usual Monday or Tuesday. We recorded it on time, but the editing process can take several hours, which was a tall order this week. So without further ado… On this week’s Critic Speak Podcast, James and I disagree with Steven Spielberg and George
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I’m in a tight spot. I didn’t find “This is the End,” the new comedy made by Team Apatow without Judd Apatow’s involvement (Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg directed and produced), to be particularly funny. But most people I know and respect—and the general public, if the “B+” CinemaScore is any indication—think that the movie
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It would be difficult to tell a superhero origin story better than was done in the 1978 “Superman.” “Man of Steel” is a relentless attempt, one handled with an abundance of violence and characters but near complete lack of humanity. Before, Superman was the embodiment of decency, raised by two plainspoken, kind middle-Americans who imbued
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