I missed this in the theatre and, sour-grapes-style, presumed it was some half-baked Seven retread. Sure, directed by David Fincher, but all those reliable names have let us down at one time or another. It was advertised exploitatively and then poof! Gone. So why did I see it now? Frankly, […]

Looking a bit like a rangy Ed Harris, Viggo Mortenson plays Nikolai, a tough Russian mobster whose dealings collide with Anna, a British OB/GYN. The collision comes in the form of a young Russian girl’s tragedy, but their paths do not immediately cross. He is entangled in the vor v zakone Russian Mafia and […]

Margot at the Wedding is, superficially, a story about Margot (Nicole Kidman) who is attending the wedding of her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to a man Margot does not think is good enough (Jack Black). The sisters have been estranged, and the movie leads me to believe that it is because Margot herself […]

Director Adam Rifkin takes an interesting idea - that of the preponderance of surveillance cameras in all our lives, and runs with it. Look is a narrative film, our characters meeting and developing gradually via footage from mall stores, ATMs, cop cars, convenience stores, parking lots, lobby cameras, etc. It would be tempting […]

If you (like me) missed this in the theatre, this is a tender little ultralow budget movie about the intimate connection of making music. It could sort of be described as a musical, since 60 percent of it (per the director) is musical performance. However, the warm folkiness of the songs and their […]

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a true story about Elle power player Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered a severe cerebral-vascular accident that resulted in a rare condition known even in French as “locked-in syndrome.” He is completely paralyzed save for one eyelid, but fully alert and conscious. His only means of communication […]

This movie is not bad, I just couldn’t connect with it. I cried a little and my heart was warmed a little, but I felt all the interesting avenues were only explored by a few cobblestones before the film returns to teasing us about Gogol’s name. I must admit straight out that I […]

This is a side note having little to do with this actual movie’s specific merits. After all the small-fry good work this year and big studio misfires, this film feels like a relic of another era, in a good way. Having a big December period movie with powerhouses Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts […]

Starting Out In The Evening is impeccably made and delicately acted. Frank Langella plays a venerated but obscure literary author, working on what he’s sure is his final book. Lauren Ambrose barges needfully into his peaceful scholarly life, a starstruck grad student who is deeply affected by Langella’s works. She wants to […]

This was a difficult review to write; even with my brilliant companion’s astute analysis, I am not sure I can distill the dollar value of The Savages for you, my Constant Readers, in a way that will sound properly reverent of its merits or critical of its flaws. In The Savages, Laura Linney and […]