Latest Film Reviews

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Man of Steel (2013)

On balance, this new cinematic take on a 75-year-old icon constitutes a worthy Superman movie and a modest improvement for a franchise that had creatively stalled.
Breaking Bad: The Fifth Season (2012)

The show continues to grow in dimension and in scope, a reality that's also meaningful within its fictional universe.
Safety Last! (1923)

On video, Safety Last! is a certified treat, but in packed movie houses, with audiences invariably gasping and giggling on every cue, it's a near-religious experience.
Much Ado About Nothing (2013)

Whedon goes for a kind of radical naturalism, an understated approach that suggests the characters could be your friends and neighbors.
This Is the End (2013)

This type of thing has already been diluted by...Funny or Die...The main difference...is that This is The End is profane in the extreme, an R-rated stoner comedy gleefully grafted onto a 'splatstick' horror picture...
In Old Arizona (1929)

The first major Western in sound...One can occasionally feel the filmmakers showing off the technology, with close-ups of a crying baby or sizzling ham and eggs.
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)

Oz the Great and Powerful gets saved from the junk heap by Franco and especially by director Sam Raimi, who happily treats the enterprise as a sandbox.
The Newsroom: The Complete First Season (2012)

By setting the show in the recent past, Sorkin can productively remind or inform a broad audience of the pith of important news we've lived through...a subplot about [NSA] wiretapping...[even] gets ahead of the curve...
A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Once blithely acceptable as American id, McClane's become the archetypal American idiot.
Falling Skies: The Complete Second Season (2011)

Cannily plays in equal measure to the sci-fi TV crowd and families, to red states and blue states, and it's a formula—refined in Season Two—that seems to be working.
The East (2013)

Intrigues not with good guy-bad guy shtick, but with the conundrum of how to live morally in an inherently immoral West.
The Internship (2013)

Although Vaughn's riffing skills remain in fine form, as do Wilson's, the story makes every obvious and conventional choice.
Now You See Me (2013)

So preposterous in its particulars, so ludicrous in its lowdown, that you're liable to kick yourself silly for having bothered to play along.
Philadelphia (1993)

What remains most striking about Philadelphia may be the...conspicuous emphasis on intense close-ups. They force an inescapable emotional intimacy in relation to issues the mainstream, at least at the time, would rather have looked away from.
3:10 to Yuma (1957)

Distinguished by its thoughtfulness regarding the nature of Western heroism, as defined not only by dead-eye gunplay, but by family, community, and moral rectitude.
Frances Ha (2013)

Brims with funny ideas both verbal and visual that are finely tuned by Baumbach and his cast, and sharply edited...
Epic (2013)

Nothing new, but given its solidly built kids' adventure, I'm not going to, y'know, look down on it.
The Hangover Part III (2013)

Less like a movie and more like a contractual obligation.
The Iceman (2013)

The main selling point here—and it's a considerable one—is Shannon, who shows new shadings in the role of Kuklinski...
Stand Up Guys (2012)

The awfulness of the narrative is plain to see, and yet...no one can say Stand Up Guys lacks personality.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Smart or...dumb? Yes, and...fun to hang around with for a couple of hours.
Shanghai Noon (2000)

Though the film nakedly seeks a wide audience through conventional plotting and characterization—and despite being (like most action movies) guy-centric—Shanghai Noon provides good, clean 'family' fun.
Shanghai Knights (2003)

This innocent, sixties-style, big-budget comedy-romance-action-adventure romp is solid family entertainment that would make any self-respecting kid's jaw drop for a good two hours.
Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Best of Both Worlds (1990)

As good as, if not better than, any of the feature films that would later star the Next Generation cast.
Star Trek: The Next Generation—Season Three (1989)

Not only did the third season mark a quantum leap in non-niche popularity for the series, but a greater consistency in the show's writing and execution that meant a precipitous drop in fan complaints.
The Great Gatsby (2013)

Luhrmann approaches the story and directs his actors in ways that hold them at a distance from us: the overkill plays less as bold art and more as lack of trust in the source material.
In the House (2013)

Inviting photography and a relentless pace complement Claude's unfolding narrative, but the big thrills are in the deftly drawn characters...and the incisive satire...
At Any Price (2012)

Works best when it sticks close to Henry, whose broad grin fails to mask a growing desperation. Quaid not only makes a believably corn-fed patriarch, but he captures the mien of one who is slowly ceding his soul...
Renoir (2013)

Perhaps it's damning Renoir with faint praise to call it agreeable, but Gilles Bourdos' film...shows an admirable restraint, quiet simplicity, and lush pictorial beauty.
The Pink Panther (1964)

All the ingredients for a great evening at the movies: lively music, eye-catching scenery, larger-than-life comic set pieces, suave men and beautiful women, and odd-man-out Clouseau, played to perfection by the one and only Peter Sellers.
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

The most satisfying cinematic experience we've had at the multiplex thus far this year, and largely through its disinterest in playing along with movie trends.
Evil Dead (2013)

There are two types of people in the world. Those who should under no circumstances see the horror sequel/reboot Evil Dead and those who just gotta see it.
Lincoln (2012)

Day-Lewis...wears well the weariness of the office and Lincoln's puckish yet subdued sense of humor, scaling the man closer to life-size than Mount Rushmore monumental.
From Up on Poppy Hill (2013)

Sunny days, blue skies, and rippling blue waters lined with greenery...Plain nice, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The Host (2013)

Do not consume The Host before operating heavy machinery. Side effects may include spontaneous coma or fits of giggling.
A Royal Affair (2012)

Supplements its palace intrigue with the good old-fashioned pull of romance and costume drama...Mikkelsen's magnetism and sly expressiveness hold the film's center with a quiet potency.
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

Monsieur Verdoux can boast a screenplay with a highly unusual moral complexity and a deeply philosophical bent...Yes, Verdoux is a film that name-drops Schopenhauer, but it's also damn funny...
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

By most cinematic measures, Zero Dark Thirty is one of the best-made films of 2012. It also probably shouldn't exist.
The Croods (2012)

Appears to have been market-tested to within an inch of its life, so despite a theme of finding the capacity to evolve, the picture remains mired in the tar pit of formula.
On the Road (2012)

This pretty period-pictorial companion piece to the novel fatally misses out on the brain-firing raw buzz that Kerouac felt and passed on to his readers...

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