I know I wasn’t expecting one of the year’s best movies to come from Iran, but here it is. In “A Separation,” writer-director Asghar Farhadi presents us with a minor domestic dispute–an argument, an angry shove–and keeps us riveted as
Meryl Streep doesn’t simply play Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” she exudes her. With an intense concentration, Streep captures both the chipper intransigence of Britain’s first female prime minister (from 1979 to 1990), and–with the aid of uncannily realistic
Before I embark on my daily round of puppy-kicking and unicorn-strangling, I have to say that in sitting through Spielberg’s second new release, War Horse, I felt as if I were being lowered into a vat of warm tears, there
For viewers unfamiliar with the Swedish original, David Fincher’s ripping remake of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” should be a knockout. Fincher, a master of uneasy mood and unflinching depravity, is a perfect match for the very raw material
It has to be said that Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” represents a new peak in motion-capture artistry. Unlike the 2004 “Polar Express,” in which we could never shake our awareness of a spectral Tom Hanks imprisoned beneath that
In 1893, having wearied of his most famous creation, Arthur Conan Doyle sent Sherlock Holmes tumbling off a Swiss mountain ledge to his death in the foaming Reichenbach Falls, still locked in battle with his nemesis, Professor James Moriarty, “the
The latest “Mission: Impossible” film, an enormous piece of product said to have consumed some $140-million on its way to an IMAX pleasure dome near you, has one idea, and you already know it. The idea is: Run for your
Despite the cascade of critical praise splashing down on the new “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” it’s not hard to imagine the movie being greeted with bafflement, and possibly boredom, by many viewers, especially those who’ve never read the 1974 John
Charlize Theron is that rare big-screen beauty who’s willing to subvert her looks in order to fully inhabit a difficult character. She did it to play a grotesque real-life killer in the 2003 “Monster” (for which she won an Oscar),
The sexual furies that roil the new movie “Shame” are poundingly, startlingly graphic for a mainstream release. (The picture is rated NC-17.) The film’s protagonist, Brandon Sullivan, played with fearless commitment by Michael Fassbender, is an emotional zombie anonymously employed
Apart from having one of the most easily forgotten titles in recent recall, ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ is a movie without a point. As a demonstration of the sinister nature of hippie commune-cults, the picture conveys a lesson that was
Surely there can be few people by now who are unaware that politics is a scummy business. Nevertheless, this is the news that director George Clooney brings us in his carefully paced semi-thriller, ‘The Ides of March.’ As the title
A man is tied to a chair. He’s being brutally interrogated. But he’s a man who takes shit from no one. And so–you have to see this–he rises up against his tormenters and in a martial-artsy fury takes them out.
Abduction has a slick, twisty story and some strong actors–Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello, Alfred Molina. But the movie is consistently subverted by a teen-flick insistence on having its star, 19-year-old Taylor Lautner, bare his famous torso at regular intervals and
Even before the opening credits roll, Drive takes off with a sensational gush of adrenaline. The movie’s protagonist–identified only as “Driver,” and played by Ryan Gosling–is working as the getaway wheelman for a couple of bumbling heist specialists. Pulling away
Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 “Straw Dogs” is a movie that cries out not to be remade. Even as an international movement for women’s rights and revaluation was beginning to build (Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch” had been published the year before),
Warrior seems a likely candidate for induction into the pantheon of great boxing movies. It’s even more ferocious than many such pictures in that it focuses not on standard sluggery, but on the bloody caged combat of mixed martial arts,
There’s been the usual ration of trashy films this summer–Green Lantern and Cowboys & Aliens limp instantly to mind–and now, at the gasping end of August, we have Colombiana, which is pure trash, boldly undiluted. The movie is genre action
Okay, this is a dopey film, one you can imagine being cooked up over the course of a beery Hollywood weekend. Basically–and believe me, it’s a very basic movie, running just 83 minutes–the story concerns two idiots who shanghai a
Rise of the Planet of the Apes can be considered apart from its cinematic forebearers, I think. Possibly you recall them: Planet of the Apes, the provocative 1968 monkey-suit classic, with Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall; that film’s four silly
Cowboys & Aliens is the highest of high concepts. Its entire premise is contained in its title, which, in the classic manner, could be scribbled on the back of a postcard. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have mailed that postcard off to
Before it stumbles into a bit of narrative miscalculation toward the end, Crazy, Stupid, Love is one of the year’s funniest pictures, cleverly structured, perfectly paced (for the most part), and enlivened by a cast that’s pretty well unimprovable. —–
Few things in real life are more heinous than Nazis. And yet in the realm of fantasy adventure, few things are more useful. As shorthand for unbounded evil, a Nazi is hard to beat. Tack on a frothing obsession with
And so it ends. What began 10 years ago in a blaze of magical wands, mysterious potions, swooping Quidditch brooms, and enchanted banquet halls now concludes in terror and sorrow, death and resurrection. Surprisingly, this is more fun than you
I imagine that in seeking a replacement for the discarded Megan Fox in the Transformers series, two qualifications were foremost in the filmmakers’ minds: one, a talent for wearing very tight clothing; and, two, the ability to scurry through fields
The one (and only, I’m afraid) good thing that can be said about Bad Teacher is that it has some wonderfully pungent lines. My hopes were certainly raised when Cameron Diaz’ character stormed into her fiancé’s house yelling “Get yourself
Opening Green Lantern in the same month–or the same galaxy–as X-Men: First Class was probably a scheduling necessity, but it forces a ruinous comparison. Capably adapted from one of the bazillion storylines in DC’s 70-year-old Green Lantern comics series, the
X-Men: First Class reboots the wallowing X-Men franchise with a burst of fresh energy and giddy pop invention. It’s a rare blockbuster that actually busts some blocks. The last film in the original trilogy, which had the lamentable Brett Ratner
Terence Malick’s latest–arriving a relatively snappy six years after his last picture–is a movie about first things: the meaning of existence, the ways of God, the bewildering sorrows of the human condition. The Tree of Life is spectacularly beautiful in
Bridesmaids is a chick flick in the way that a Rolls-Royce is a ride. True, the movie is focused on female concerns. But it’s also a Judd Apatow production, directed by Apatow’s old Freaks and Geeks colleague, Paul Feig, and
It’s not often that a popular actor sunk in disgrace and surrounded by media and movie-biz hostility can mount a comeback. Fatty Arbuckle–who was famously railroaded–never managed it; and Jeffrey Jones probably never will. So The Beaver is a triumph
Like the everyday pizza it so closely resembles, the new Fast Five offers one thing and one thing only. Forget fancy toppings and artisanal crusts; sometimes you just want something round and reddish. This movie is that pie. And like
As soon as you realize that the ringmaster barking out his greatest-show-on-earth spiel under the big-top tent is none other than Christoph Waltz, of all people, you begin to worry. You worry for Robert Pattinson. Waltz, who won an Oscar
Ed. Note: Please welcome Kurt Loder to our growing family here at Big Hollywood. Thanks to our friends at Reason.com, we’ll be co-hosting Kurt’s terrific film reviews regularly, and as a lifelong admirer of The Voice of Intelligent Reason on