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A 'War Story' With Big Ambitions And Mixed Results
"You're an amazing woman who has decided to go into war zones and take pictures. You're a bit crazy to want to do that, and I think now you're too crazy to stop."That's what Albert (Ben Kingsley) tells...
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Old Shells, New 'Turtles': Tinkering With The Insides Of A Famous Franchise
Jonathan Liebesman's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a reboot of the franchise following three live-action movies from the '90s and 2007's computer-animated TMNT, courted controversy in 2012 when the...
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James Cameron Takes The 'Deepsea Challenge' At The Ocean's Bottom
Building a submersible that can travel to the ocean's deepest point is a budget buster, even for the guy who made Titanic and Avatar. So it makes sense that the Deepsea Challenger, James Cameron's...
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'Blackboard' Chalks A Nostalgic Portrait Of School Days
Nostalgia is a hard-hitting drug, its alchemical powers well known, but can it turn a child's entire school experience into sentimental gold? Some kids love school, and many, in retrospect, realize...
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'Frank' Talk: That's Michael Fassbender Inside That Big Head
There are a number of reasons why you shouldn't cast Michael Fassbender in your movie and have him wear a giant, papier-mâché head throughout, but most central is that he has a wonderfully emotive face...
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Latin Roots: 'Mystical South America'
Today's episode of World Cafe's Latin Roots is an unusual one, in which writer and radio personality Catalina Maria Johnson explores what she calls "Mystical South America."Johnson says she first heard...
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'The One I Love': A Marriage That's Not Quite What It Appears
Before Charlie McDowell's fantastical debut feature The One I Love descends completely down the rabbit hole, it begins with a more everyday kind of dream. Ethan (Mark Duplass), trying to rekindle the...
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In 'The Congress,' An Animated Future Where Movie Studios Are Villains
The most interesting but remarkably understated aspect of The Congress, a half-live-action, half-animated trip of a film from Israeli director Ari Folman, is the increasing power accrued by the fake...
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'Kelly And Cal' Alters A Familiar Premise But Walks A Worn Path
About halfway through Kelly & Cal, a question arises about why women mature faster than men. The premise is hardly debated, but Kelly (Juliette Lewis), who is struggling with growing up herself...
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An Unblinking Lens Turns Toward Lives In Poverty In 'Stray Dogs'
Tsai Ming-liang's Stray Dogs caps off with two shots, each over ten minutes long, though I doubt that will make the movie any easier to sell, even in a culture obsessed with long takes. The...
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Terry Gilliam Sees Future Through Familiar Eyes In 'The Zero Theorem'
Given that Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem first screened at the Venice Film Festival last year, it's absolutely coincidental that it's getting a theatrical release in the same season as the Stephen...
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'My Life' Asks: How Do You Leave A War Behind?
With each new story we hear about PTSD, about the lasting price paid by those fortunate enough to have returned from war, our notion of a soldier's sacrifice expands: There are those who sacrifice...
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'Two Faces' Of Reinvention And Deceptive Identity
Adapted from a Patricia Highsmith novel, The Two Faces of January is, like Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, a tale of deceptive identities. When we meet Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and Colette...
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In 'The Blue Room,' An Uncertain Path Through An Affair
From the start of The Blue Room, with its shots of wrinkled sheets in a recently vacated hotel room, it's evident that Mathieu Amalric's film will focus not strictly on the illicit affair between...
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Bang The Drum Ever Faster In The Different Sports Arena Of 'Whiplash'
Whiplash is, in many ways, a companion film to The Social Network. The similarities only begin with the film's protagonist Andrew (Miles Teller), a first-year jazz drummer at the highly competitive...
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In 'Listen Up Philip,' Literary Arrogance Stubbornly Refuses To Change
Alex Ross Perry has a knack for writing male characters with deep reservoirs of literary arrogance, and he has taken his talent to a new level with his intricately crafted film, Listen Up Philip.In his...
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'The Heart Machine' Finds Subtlety In The Perils Of Online Dating
The Heart Machine is Zachary Wigon's debut feature — a point worth mentioning up top, because the film exhibits the kind of patience, good judgment and restraint that normally requires careful...
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'The Great Invisible' Views An Environmental Catastrophe From Many Sides
The Great Invisible, Margaret Brown's soft-spoken documentary about the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, recognizes that disasters — from shootings to extreme weather events — often...
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Jon Stewart's 'Rosewater' Reach Exceeds His Grasp
There's undoubtedly a farcical element to the true story told in Rosewater that makes it seem like the ideal directorial debut for Jon Stewart.The film is about Maziar Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal), who...
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A 'Garden' Full Of Dazzling, Whimsical Tales
"Real magic, right next door," exclaims a character in "Walpurgis Afternoon," one of the short stories in Delia Sherman's stellar short-story collection, Young Woman in a Garden. In it, a family that's...
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