Bernie (2012) A Film by Richard Linklater

"You cannot have grief tragically becoming comedy," warns Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a plump, mustachioed mortician while giving a...

Lincoln (2012) A Film by Steven Spielberg

With Lincoln , Steven Spielberg has managed to supply meaty human drama, unexpected revelations, and even suspense to a historical political...

Anna Karenina (2012) A Film by Joe Wright

The world of Anna Karenina as seen by Joe Wright apparently interpreting Leo Tolstoy is expressed as a large, seemingly expanding and contr...

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) A Film by John Hyams

In a year that has brought some films of the most damning levels of "self-seriousness" for some ( Cloud Atlas , Prometheus , Compl...

Screening Notes #16

The Hobbit (2012): For what it's worth, I slouched into my cushioned seat with, if not quite the level of giddy excitement I sensed flo...

What's Up, Doc? (1972) A Film by Peter Bogdanovich

Surfacing after the quiet, melancholy, restrained The Last Picture Show , Peter Bogdanovich showed himself to be a true chameleon, and an es...

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) A Film by Kathryn Bigelow

The slight but crucial difference in Kathryn Bigelow's directorial approach to the sensitive issues of the war on terror between 2010...

Screening Notes #15

The Loneliest Planet (2011): At 42, Julia Loktev is a really brave and confident filmmaker. I know this because she banks the entire succes...

Flight (2012) A Film by Robert Zemeckis

For a director who has spent the last decade toiling in the still nebulous terrain of computer generated imagery, Robert Zemeckis' retur...

We Won't Grow Old Together (1972) A Film by Maurice Pialat

Maurice Pialat's second full-length feature We Won't Grow Old Together is a devastating exploration of a slowly disintegrating roma...

On Showboating, Oblivion, and Tom Hanks

If you've seen the fascinating disaster that is Cloud Atlas , you may be interested in my new review over at The Daily Notebook. This i...

Out of Sight (1998) A Film by Steven Soderbergh

The characters in Steven Soderbergh’s films are often defined by a particular moral code and the extent to which they’re willing to bend or ...