The Oscar nominations prove that the endless prognostications and odds-making (including my own) are, piece by piece, line by line, worthless, a waste of time and bandwidth, and that the voters of th...
In the old days, kids would have to hide their love of comic books from grown-ups. Now, grown-up critics have to hide their lack of love of comic-book movies from kids. The punishment for not giving ...
It happens in the screenings I generally go to, which are mostly for critics and media types. It happens in theaters I go to that you also go to, arthouses and multiplexes: fireflies to the left of y...
Critics will be falling all over themselves to evoke the thrilling kineticism of Justin Lins Fast Five, but amid the high-decibel crashes and brain-swooshing whip pans, there is another, flabbier ele...
Last year, I could think of nothing more vile, nothing more nihilistic, nothing more soul-draining, than The Human Centipede, which I could barely bring myself to write about. And now, in the last 24...
This weekend I hope to catch up with Atlas Shrugged Part 1, but Im a little dismayed to read this from its businessman producer John Aglialoro, who says that after the mediocre box-office showing hes...
Its not my bailiwick, but I want to say Im on board with Andrew Sullivan and others who want to see Trig Palins birth certificate, especially now that President Obama has put his own "birther"...
Critic Elvis Mitchell’s departure from Movieline has spawned the usual flood of “What use are critics, anyway?” comments on various websites. Nikki Finke, for whose work I feel enor...
Its where the person says, "Rotten Tomatoes critics averaged..." Its where you should stop reading, too--or break off your live conversation and cut your losses. You know youre dealing with p...
As kind a corollary to the samizdat in Infinite Jest, there are jokes so terrible they have the capacity to haunt our dreams, grateful only that we weren’t the ones to spring them on an unforgi...
The Lincoln Lawyer has been out for a couple of weeks, and even though it’s low-key and got so-so reviews that compared it to TV law shows, it’s hanging on and building an audience. I kno...
I sympathize with Rand Paul and his rage at all these newfangled water-saving toilets, I really do. I just got rid of an old toilet in my Park Slope dwelling that had been there since, I kid you not,...
It’s no big deal, it’s not Egypt or Libya, but for the last week I’ve been haunted by Whoopi Goldberg’s embarrassing hissy fit on her television show, The View. If you somehow...
If you’re near Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville on Thursday, February 10 (or even if you’re not), come see the wonderful 2009 film Starting Out in the Evening and its even more wonder...
If the success of multiple lousy “franchises” is any indication, moviegoers can be conditioned to salivate on cue—and nothing made us drool like the James Bond theme of John Barry, ...
Given the non-stop Oscar odds-making and chatter, it feels, minutes after the 2010 nominations have been announced, as if they’re old news. But that’s not entirely the case: Now, it has a...
I’d planned to accentuate the positive this year and refrain from making a ten-worst list, but the folks at Vulture asked for my input on a poll of critics’ ten-worst films, and it’...
[This often happens: Pieces I like get shortened for space in the print mag and go online in their cut form. So heres my Best New York Movie Ever piece as originally written. (Apologies for omitting ...
This blog has been on a hiatus while I wrote about a slew of November-December movies and gave extra reviews to this magazine’s expanded Vulture site, which is also your one-stop shop for all t...
Like everyone else, I’m appalled that Buffy the Vampire Slayer will come back as a feature film without the participation of Joss Whedon, who had the brainstorm for the character and never let ...
Thanks to those who came out to the Q&A with Stanley Tucci at the tony Hamptons Film Festival last weekend: I know you were there for him but you sent some like my way, too, which isnt aways the case...
It felt strange to board a plane to Iceland for the Reykjavik Film Festival last week with our own prestige New York fest in progress, but it’s a safe bet that Lincoln Center wouldn’t be ...
Fast (these &%*&$# deadlines) thoughts on the loss of two famous Jews who’ve just left us, Arthur Penn and Tony Curtis. One seminal, game-changing masterpiece like Bonnie and Clyde is not too b...
Im back from Iceland where the talk on Jim Jarmusch went very well and before I flew out I was treated to a personal tour of geysers, water falls, and kilometer after kilometer of vistas that looked ...
Theres a festival in New York, but who could say no to a weekend trip to balmy Iceland for the Reykjavik International Film Festival, where Im giving a talk (Im still cramming! It will take place Sun...
Yeah, so, Casey Affleck says it was an act but doesn’t like the word “hoax.” Where have I read that before? (The Times goes with my "performance art" designation, too, in it...
I dont usually bring yall into my process, but as I struggle through a review of Catfish (no spoilers), Im feeling gun-shy. Am I being gulled, like those champions of memoirs by J.T. Leroy and James ...
After a bit of a time-delay, my review of I’m Still Here is finally here, online. I enjoyed the movie hugely: I love watching nutty exhibitionists act out their insecurities, safe, in this case...
Two weeks ago I wrote: "And I can’t wait to spend a couple of days at the Film Forum with Roy Ward Baker’s Inferno and my 78th viewing of William Castle’s The Tinger—I hop...
Whether we’re conscious of it or not, part of the suspense when we a watch a violent movie comes from fear that the leading man or woman will have his or her nice face battered and go from beau...
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