Movies

Review: The Adventures of Tintin

Spielberg's second-rate animated Indiana Jones
I don't know how fans of the title hero are going to take this adaptation, since I'm not familiar with the classic Hergé comic strip on which it's based, but followers of Steven Spielberg might regard it as a second-rate, animated Indiana Jones.

By: PETER KEOUGH | December 20, 2011

Review: A Dangerous Method

Cronenberg's dramatization of the rise of psychoanalysis
Perhaps the three characters in David Cronenberg's handsome, eloquent dramatization of the birth and near demise of psychoanalysis represent the parts of the psyche that the movement would eventually hypothesize.

By: PETER KEOUGH | December 20, 2011

Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Alfredson tinkers with le Carré's spy classic
Aside from the obvious differences — a knack for Quidditch for example — George Smiley might be considered the Cold War equivalent of Harry Potter.

By: PETER KEOUGH | January 04, 2012

Review: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Helium-infused banter
For 50 years, Alvin and the Chipmunks have been driving parents nuts with their helium-infused banter and shrill bastardizations of pop music.

By: TOM MEEK | December 13, 2011

Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Guy Ritchie's return to the world of Sherlock Holmes
A new game is afoot in director Guy Ritchie's return to the world of Sherlock Holmes, but Robert Downey Jr.'s first outing as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed sleuth puts Shadows in the shade.

By: BRETT MICHEL | December 13, 2011

Review: Young Adult

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody's first re-teaming since Juno
A baby, a high school, and esoteric pop culture references once again figure prominently — albeit less glibly — in director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody's first re-teaming since Juno.

By: ALICIA POTTER | December 13, 2011

Review: The Sitter

Tale of a Robitussin-addicted man-child
David Gordon Green's latest finds him working in the scruffy comic realm that's shrouded his past couple of pictures in a pot-smoke haze.

By: BRETT MICHEL | December 13, 2011

Review: New Year's Eve

Feast of forced fun
Lately Garry Marshall has shown a certain genius for turning miserable holidays into terrible movies.

By: PETER KEOUGH | December 06, 2011

Review: Answers to Nothing

Matthew Leutwyler's trite contraption
The baleful influence of Paul Haggis's multi-narrative Oscar-winner Crash (2004) continues with Matthew Leutwyler's trite contraption.

By: PETER KEOUGH | November 29, 2011

The director of Immortals could be Hollywood's most misunderstood blockbuster auteur

Tarsem revealed
When I first saw the trailer for Immortals, I wondered how Tarsem's newest film would be misinterpreted.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | November 30, 2011

Review: My Week with Marilyn

Kiss-and-tell-memoir
The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) didn't distinguish the résumés of either Marilyn Monroe or Laurence Olivier. It did mark a highpoint in the life of 23-year-old Colin Clark.

By: PETER KEOUGH | November 21, 2011

Review: Hugo

A valentine to early cinema
Martin Scorsese goes Spielberg with Hugo, as dumbed-down as the shortening of the title of Brian Selznick's Caldecott winner implies.

By: ANN LEWINSON | November 21, 2011

Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Unfilmable and inscrutable
How do you film Stephenie Meyer's unfilmable Breaking Dawn ?

By: ANN LEWINSON | November 22, 2011

Review: Arthur Christmas 3D

Sarah Smith's revisionist Santa Claus
The diametric opposite of the Antarctica-set Happy Feet Two , or at least geographically, Sarah Smith's revisionist Santa Claus tale still delivers the same kind of offbeat holiday animation.

By: PETER KEOUGH | November 21, 2011

Review: Happy Feet Two

Crack-brained morality tale
Lovely to look at despite the 3D, and sometimes bordering on the psychedelic, this crack-brained morality tale blends the sublimely weird and the cloyingly awful as it preaches once again the paradox that you should be true to yourself as long as you are in step with everyone else.

By: PETER KEOUGH | November 15, 2011

Review: Jack and Jill

Easily Sandler's worst film
Director Dennis Dugan's second Adam Sandler vehicle of the year turns out to be even worse than Just Go with It.

By: BRETT MICHEL | November 15, 2011

Review: Tower Heist

Employees plot to take back what was rightfully theirs from an embezzling billionaire
Ruth Madoff's 60 Minutes interview last week might as well have been set up by the makers of Tower Heist .

By: ANN LEWINSON | November 08, 2011

Review: A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas

Harold and Kumar are back, still high
"Hasn't the whole 3D thing jumped the shark by now?"

By: ANN LEWINSON | November 08, 2011

Review: J. Edgar

DiCaprio as right-wing hero J. Edgar Hoover
Filmmaker Clint Eastwood, famously Republican, portrays right-wing hero J. Edgar Hoover, the late FBI head, as a self-aggrandizing, conniving bully and mama's boy who broke the law whenever he wanted to bring anyone down.

By: GERALD PEARY | November 08, 2011

Review: Immortals

Tarsem Singh's "visionary" directing
In Ancient Greece a stonemason is plucked from obscurity to battle evil while a posse of beautiful gods looks on from their fabulous Olympian penthouse, before plunging earthwards to kick mortal butt.

By: SHEILA JOHNSTON | November 10, 2011

Review: In Time

Andrew Niccol's sci-fi allegory
"I don't have time to explain," Will (Justin Timberlake) says at the beginning of Andrew Niccol's sci-fi allegory. Well, I've still got a few questions. Like, if this is the future, why is everyone driving a '63 Lincoln?

By: PETER KEOUGH | November 01, 2011