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...