A one-star reviewer of Meek’s Cutoff on the IMDb complained that there’s no dialogue for the first 15 minutes. This is one of the many things I liked about the movie. These people have gotten …

Richard Press’s documentary about Times Styles photographer, and chance fashion-world icon, Bill Cunningham, keeps it light for the first hour. The tone is the gently knowing one of PBS specials about James-Cameronian construction projects of …

This is probably the Terrence Malick movie for people who hate Terrence Malick. I do not hate Terrence Malick; I find his work fascinating (with one exception, The Thin Red Line, which I have now …

I don’t entirely disagree with Roger Ebert’s assessment, in his review of The Debt, that “the film jumps the rails towards the end.” The last sequence is highly unbelievable on several levels — the timing; …

Words are a fucking nightmare when it comes to closeness, often. … Words became the enemy. — Stephanie LaFarge
Project Nim tells the frustrating story of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee taken from his mother as an …

The story in question is that of Daniel McGowan, a former ELF agitator (and arsonist, by his own admission) who got pinched by federal agents in 2005. He’s not a terribly likely-looking “domestic terrorist,” certainly …

Everything. K, great: on to Film #2!
…Fine, it doesn’t get everything wrong. It’s not necessarily objectively terrible. The writing does a handful of things I can’t stand, though, and starts doing them immediately, so I …

…Because we’re stupid, that’s why.
Okay, seriously: Couch Baron and I decided each to write up one film for every day in December. For him, it’s a way to get a jump on Oscar season; for …

The pre-Nixon-era mental hospital is a preoccupying terror of U.S. popular culture to this day. This isn’t without basis; madness, and its attendant visions and rants, is a preoccupation of narratives throughout the world and …

I got a promotional email about Margin Call from Lincoln Center, and incorrectly assumed I could only see it there, therefore braving a Saturday audience at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Theater — a lovely facility …