If Super 8 were set in the present, its E.T. would likely want to Skype home. But so what if J.J. Abrams (the second "J" is for Spielberg Jr.) wears his influence on his celluloid? Super 8 is enough of a homage that you can't help but notice it but not so blatant that it [...]
Chris Hemsworth takes all of five seconds to impress you in Thor. About to be crowned king in his ancient realm of Asgard, Thor looks up at his mother and gives a wink and a brilliant smile—and it's clear that this Thunder God is quite used to leaving others thunderstruck.
It's no different when his father, [...]
If you see only one film titled Win Win this year...well, you actually have a choice of two. Win Win is an American film starring Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan that tells the story of a lawyer who does a not-so-ethical thing for money. Win/Win, meanwhile, is a Dutch film playing at Filmfest DC tonight [...]
Skip 3 Backyards if you've got a headache—unless you plan on sleeping through the film, which would be a more pleasant option than watching it. Overpowered by a high-pitched, atonal score and constantly interrupted by blurred-to-focused nature shots, writer-director Eric Mendelsohn's film about suburbia is also steeped in what-the-fuckness, as in: What the fuck are [...]
Tom Shadyac would like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love. Not a big home, mind you—perhaps a trailer, like the one the director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Bruce Almighty now lives in. Because greed is bad, man, and nothing in nature takes more than it needs.
Those are some [...]
A nice guy does a not-very-nice thing in Tom McCarthy's Win Win. It's financial desperation that nudges New Jersey lawyer and wrestling coach Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) into doing the unthinkable: becoming the legal guardian, for $1,500 a month, of a client (Burt Young) who's suffering from dementia.
Mike argues to the judge that he'll [...]
Are they or aren't they? That's the question that will dog you throughout Certified Copy, writer-director Abbas Kiarostami's first feature filmed outside of Iran. Juliette Binoche took Cannes' best actress price for her role as Elle, a Tuscany gallery owner who's a little too enthusiastic about a reading by James Miller (opera singer William [...]
Send Twilight back a couple of centuries and make Edward Cullen poor instead of vampiric and you've got Red Riding Hood, Catherine Hardwicke's update of the classic fairy tale and/or attempt to redeem herself to millions of Stephenie Meyer fans. With a proactive heroine this time, she nearly succeeds, even if you spend the [...]
Jeff Lipsky's Twelve Thirty is not so much composed of scenes as it is of a series of conversations—endless and increasingly tedious ones. The story, also scripted by the Flannel Pajamas director, involves a 22-year-old named Jeff (Jonathan Groff) who, despite being rightfully called "vanilla," gets awfully lucky with a family of comely women who [...]
Producer Michael Bay's douchebag fingerprints are all over I Am Number Four, a Twilight-meets-Transformers mash-up that will leave you alternately bored and confused. John (Alex Pettyfer) is an "extraordinary teen," which means he's an alien who's trying to blend in on Earth by pouting a lot and talking in a monotone. (He can also throw [...]
