Smoke a Lot of Big Monkey Butt*

Here’s a list of Muriel-eligible releases I’ve seen so far in 2012.  If it seems like I’m lenient with my ratings, reflect that my time is a...

Of all the complaints I’ve read about We Need to Talk About Kevin , Ramsay’s first film in nearly a decade, the most interesting to me is th...

Ever since the first Twilight installment three years ago, I’ve complained that Kristen Stewart isn’t much of an actor, but now I don’t thi...

2006’s Happy Feet wasn’t a great movie by any means, but for all its cute dancing penguins what lingers in the memory is what an eccentric ...

Cold Weather is a treasure because it’s not ashamed to be modest of scale. To the contrary, writer/director/editor Aaron Katz relishes in ...

Since its release in 2006, the original Cars has gotten a rep as being one of Pixar’s least successful releases- from a creative standpoint...

I’m almost tempted not to bother writing a review for this, seeing as how the Pirates franchise has practically come to defined the express...

Here’s a list of Muriel-eligible releases I’ve seen so far in 2011. If it seems like I’m lenient with my ratings, reflect that my time is a...

Suppose someone told you that Werner Herzog made a documentary about the cave containing the world’s oldest prehistoric paintings. If you ha...

Was beginning to worry that Ozon might not have another romp like 8 Women in him, but his reunion with Catherine Deneuve has pulled him out...

I realize I’m in the minority here, but I personally found A Serious Man to be one of the Coen brothers’ lesser efforts. On one level, it w...

Nowadays, many cinephiles apply the word “auteur” to directors who build their movies from the ground up, writing and producing (and sometim...

“Everyone I know goes away in the end.” ~ Nine Inch Nails, “Hurt” When asked recently about the essential difference between his original U....

Nowadays, we’re told from childhood that we can do damn near anything, provided we’re willing to put forth the effort. And while that’s not ...

You know, I think I’m pretty much done with Solondz. Happiness has its problems, particularly when Solondz feels the need to provoke, but i...

One of the biggest surprises of 2007 was the discovery of Ben Affleck as a serious filmmaker. Some would argue that much of the success of A...

Well, now that that’s out of the way… After the lovely and relatively straightforward Not on the Lips and Private Fears in Public Places ,...

Is there any archetypal character with a higher mortality rate than that of the crook doing his last job? Once you know that, The American ...

The history of movies is filled with hermits, but few have been as precisely drawn as Felix Bush, the protagonist of Get Low . Played by Rob...

It’s a challenge for me to review a movie like Restrepo . It’s not that I think that it’s a bad movie, or even a particularly odd one. But...

Often, when critics extol a movie for being imaginative and creative, they do so in order to praise flights of fancy that make their hearts ...

I honestly don’t feel like I have a lot to add to Mike D’Angelo’s spot-on assessment of Cholodenko’s latest, which might as well be titled S...

A subtler take on a prickly, Cassavetes-style relationship drama, Everyone Else examines the friction-filled love affair between Gitti (Bir...

There’s a certain paradox to the notion of Christopher Nolan making a “dream-film.” Nolan’s work has always been distinguished by a Swiss-wa...

In many ways, the Ozarks world of Winter’s Bone harbors a way of life that seems to have changed little since the Great Depression. Oh sure...