Matt Damon

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Review: We Bought A Zoo

Cameron Crowe's film version of Benjamin Mee's memoir
Matt Damon plays Mee, a journalist who decides that he and his daughter (a precocious Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and sullen teenage son (Colin Ford) need a new start after the death of his wife, so he spends his life savings on a house in the country.
By BRETT MICHEL | December 20, 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: Margaret

Unexpected situations
Kenneth Lonergan offers no resolutions in this complex and moving parable, unless it's the observation that the only resolutions in life are in art.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 04, 2011

Review: Contagion

The Traffic of viral outbreak movies
For all the death and panic, this is a relatively quiet film.
By BRETT MICHEL | September 13, 2011

Fun with Matt & Ben at Central Square

Bosom buddies
A couple of young women, Brenda Withers and Mindy Kaling (the latter born in Cambridge before graduating to the role of Kelly Kapoor in The Office ), decided to have some fun with the idea that two seemingly unformed guys — one kind of loutish — could strike show-biz paydirt so quickly.
By ED SIEGEL | July 12, 2011

Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Blunt and Damon try to rise above ponderous mystifications
Matt Damon doesn't shy from roles that address the questions that can really bother a guy - like identity (the Bourne movies), death (Hereafter), and now the meaning of it all.
By PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2011

Review: True Grit (2010)

The Coen brothers are True to Grit
Those who saw John Wayne's Oscar-winning, scenery-chewing turn as "Rooster" Cogburn in Henry Hathaway's 1969 adaptation of True Grit might have a hard time shaking that off when it comes to appreciating Jeff Bridges in the same part.
By PETER KEOUGH | February 24, 2011

Review: Hereafter

We all got it coming
Forget Dirty Harry — this might be Clint Eastwood's most controversial and divisive film ever.
By PETER KEOUGH | February 24, 2011

Interview: Sarah Silverman

Staying dry
Recently, “Sarah” — the character played by Sarah Silverman on Comedy Central’s The Sarah Silverman Program — was upset because in today’s world it just wasn’t safe anymore for children to get into strangers’ vans.
By JIM SULLIVAN | April 23, 2010

Box-office guru comes to Boston

Film school
The Massachusetts House of Representatives recently rejected attempts to cap the tax breaks offered to filmmakers in the commonwealth, which is good for Hollywood studios and for the local economy.
By PETER KEOUGH | April 07, 2010

Review: Green Zone

Follow the yellowcake road to the Emerald City
Paul Greengrass's Green Zone takes us on a frenetic trip down memory lane — back to the beginning of the Iraq War.
By SHAULA CLARK | March 17, 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

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: Invictus

Clint shows team spirit
Poetry, muses Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) in a reflective moment in Invictus , consists only of words, yet it can inspire perseverance and greatness beyond our own expectations of ourselves. Sport, similarly, consists of oversized, overpaid athletes pounding one another in simulated combat, but it's also a form of poetry.
By PETER KEOUGH | December 09, 2009

Hardboiled hub

The city’s gritty, criminal underbelly has redefined the dark, artistic vision known as Boston noir
When I was growing up in Roslindale a few decades back — among tribes of ignorant, second-generation immigrant kids whose favorite words began with “f” and “n” and who liked to torture small animals and beat up small children before they moved on to their future vocations as petty criminals, dead dope users, or real-estate agents.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 21, 2009

Review: The Informant!

Soderbergh's state of cornfusion
The Informant! opens with a segment that sounds as if it had been culled from Food, Inc.
By PETER KEOUGH | September 16, 2009

Review: Ponyo

Visually stunning, but leaves you shaking your head
In a film like Spirited Away (2001), Hayao Miyazaki takes flight and creates his own seductive animated universe. When tied to a Disney fable about the environment and true love, he lurches from cliché to myth to things that just leave you shaking your head.
By PETER KEOUGH | August 12, 2009

Sex and food and Abraham Lincoln

Gift books for every (perverse) taste
We put out a call to our contributors to suggest appropriate holiday gift books and what do we get back?
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 05, 2008

Welcome to the PalinDome

One-stop shopping for humor mavericks
One-stop shopping for humor mavericks
By PHOENIX STAFF | October 14, 2008

Scout's honor

Burn Notice ’s honest con job
In the popular imagination, the spy is always cool, sophisticated, elegant — in other words, European.
By CHARLES TAYLOR | August 26, 2008

Bourne to lose

Action, but no thrills, in this Conspiracy
The Bourne Conspiracy is a video game not directly based on the Bourne films starring Matt Damon — a fact its makers have taken great pains to obscure.
By MITCH KRPATA | June 10, 2008

Jumper

An 88-minute flop
Life and this movie are too short to have to put up with the little shit.
By BRETT MICHEL | February 13, 2008

History rocks

Zinn's people's history comes to life, and song
“Not radical,” he replied. “I’d say ‘the truth.’ ”
By JIM SULLIVAN | January 15, 2008

Silver linings on a dark screen

Film: 2007 in review
The best films of 2007 hold their own when it comes to despair, evil, and treachery.
By PETER KEOUGH | December 18, 2007

Dance, Monkey: Charlie Murphy

A comic in the hot seat
Who is it? Matt Damon? It’s not Flavor Flav?
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | November 19, 2007

Bad will hunting

Ben is back with Gone Baby Gone
Films about Boston tend to be no better than their worst Boston accent.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 18, 2007

Covert action

The Bourne Ultimatum possesses central intelligence
Some talented filmmakers try to play a Hollywood game, churning out a big-budget commercial product in exchange for a smaller, more personal and artistic venture.
By PETER KEOUGH | August 07, 2007

Heroes of our time

From Bond to Bourne, the good guys (and girls) buck the system
In interviews promoting The Bourne Ultimatum , Matt Damon has argued that his Jason Bourne has supplanted James Bond as the hero of our time.
By PETER KEOUGH | July 31, 2007

Keeping It Real

Sticking to the facts in a post-9/111 world, Michael Winterbottom and Paul Greengrass lead a new breed of filmmaker
We’ll get used to it, I suppose, this new category of moviegoing distress. Sooner or later, we get used to everything.
By JAMES PARKER | June 20, 2007

Flotsam and jetsam

The tars are adrift in Ocean’s Thirteen
Steven Soderbergh’s third “Ocean” film is a pastry of a movie, airy, insubstantial, and meant to fill in the gaps between heartier meals.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON | June 05, 2007