“New decade. New rules.” This tagline for “Scream 4,” the fourth in a series of movies each of which is entitled “Scream,” is profoundly inaccurate, and I think the movie’s director, Wes Craven, and writer, Kevin Williamson, would be the first to say so
A friend of mine who didn’t care for “Black Swan,” Darren Aronofsky’s masterful new ickfest, complained that the movie is “all on one level.” This is true, but it’s quite a level.
If The Warrior’s Way teaches us anything (and it does), it’s that sentimentality is surprisingly durable. The movie’s ruthless ninja protagonist (Dong-gun Jang) finds and decides to foster a baby (Analin Rudd) in the first few minutes of the film, and the resultant fuzzy-cuddly vibes linger pleasantly for at least an hour.
2009’s Paranormal Activity and its new sequel, Paranormal Activity 2, are very similar. They tell different parts of the same overlapping story, and they have the same ingenious mock-documentary concept—The Blair Witch Project set in the posh, comfortable interiors of affluent suburbia.
“Splice,” a very good horror movie, and “The Last Exorcism,” a decent one, end on about the same note. This note sounds logically after a long, slow creep toward the abyss in “Splice,” while it is banged out at the last minute in “The Last Exorcism,” but it’s recognizably the same.
Snark is delicate. There are few things more asinine than clumsy or stilted snark, and even clever snark can feel cheap and mean-spirited.
Miley Cyrus is a phenomenon and a superstar and a notable icon of North American Have It Your Way-ism, but she is not an especially talented thespian.
Terry Gilliam’s new movie, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” doesn’t make sense—at least not in the usual way.
It is bracing to watch Michael Cera, leading contender for World’s Most Lovable Young Person, play a character with an ugly soul.
Everybody’s Fine appears to be a corny sap-story about an endearing old man, played by Robert De Niro, who embarks on an endearing cross-country voyage to reconnect with his grown-up children after the death of his wife. And, indeed, that’s what it is. However, there is something a little shocking here.
Bob Dylan released a Christmas album a couple weeks ago. Which is weird.
The Box, the new horror-ish film by Donnie Darko writer-director Richard Kelly, is mostly concerned with horrible things such as free will, malevolent electricity, ritualistic alienation, and the extermination of the human race. However, it is also, tangentially, a Christmas movie.
Steven Soderbergh has had a fascinatingly schizophrenic career. It began with the visionary Indie hit “sex, lies, and videotape”; by now, it has expanded to include star-driven capers like “Ocean’s 11-13” without excluding commercially hopeless ventures like a Tarkovsky remake (“Solaris”) and a 4 hour film about Che Guevara (“Che”).
Woody Allen is an old man. I don’t mean this as an insult by any means; it’s amazing that he has continued making movies so prolifically into his 70’s. However, I do sometimes wish he would act his age.
Dan O’Sullivan evaluates this summer’s blockbusters.
Last weekend in the ’92 Theater, 2nd Stage presented “Sunday in the Park with George,” a Stephen Sondheim musical that investigates the ideas and mythologies surrounding artists. For better or worse, the focus of “Sunday” is all there in the title: an artist and his one moment of glory.
“Though you are gone from me
We never can really be apart
What’s written on the wind
Is written in my heart…”
The Haunting in Connecticut is no breakthrough when it comes to ghost stories, though it occasionally threatens to be.
Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s way of seeing things is just crazy enough to make you believe it.
Apparently, some of singer-songwriter/force of nature Neko Case’s new album, “Middle Cyclone,” was recorded in an old barn – and it sounds like it. The record is filled with memories, but it also has an empty, echoing space, room for ghosts and melancholy.
Killing Scantily-Clad Teenagers in a Hockey Mask, Part XII: A Michael Bay Production
It’s cleverly engineered to attract prestige without necessarily deserving it. Does Oscar Bait rot our brains?