The true achievement of Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha is how effortlessly it captures the inconsistencies of youth without being overly precious or dishonest. Sure, Frances can be quirky, and she's selfish, but she's also lonely and a bit lost and, though lacking in essential self-awareness, desperately confused by the ups and downs of her own existential crisis. Frances Ha is a movie about a young woman getting her life together, even when she doesn't realize that's what's happening.

Greta Gerwig (Damsels in Distress) stars as Frances, a 27-year-old dancer living in New York City. Frances is a third-stringer at her dance company, always on the sidelines, the understudy to the understudy...Read the entire review

I remember joking in high school about organizing an anarchy club, because of course the last thing anarchists should be doing is organizing. I am sure every teen who gets into punk rock and philosophy stumbles upon a similar gag. I bet you Ben Wheatley would find it hilarious.

Wheatley is the British director responsible for Down Terrace and Kill List. His most current offering, Sightseers, makes pretensions of chaos. It's a black comedy about a vacationing couple whose holiday on the road turns into a killing spree. For Chris (Steve Oram) it begins accidentally (perhaps), but once the impulse is indulged, he keeps indulging it, murdering people who offend his delicate sensibilities in some ma...Read the entire review

I never thought a movie could replicate the experience of being on an internet message board, but the documentary Room 237 essentially does just that. Filmmaker Rodney Ascher has gathered together a handful of crackpot obsessives who have spent way too much time thinking about Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film The Shining and basically gives them a space to share their opinions and observations unchallenged, creating a kind of crazy five-way dialogue that spans whatever cultural and geographical boundaries that might otherwise separate them. Though we are told the names of these commentators--most of whom are impressed with their own powers of perception past the point of rationality--they are essent...Read the entire review

You'll be hard-pressed to find a movie this year as willing to be liked as Sleepwalk with Me. Mike Birbiglia's film debut, adapting his own comedy/play/book to the big screen alongside some of his This American Life cohorts, is a friendly indie effort. It begins with Birbiglia introducing himself and setting up the film's narrative throughline--that the comedian is our host and he will be telling his story while driving toward some narrative destination. It's a feigned intimacy. Just a couple of buddies out on the road.

This works in Sleepwalk's favor. Despite the odd decision to change the lead character's name to Matt Pandamiglio, this is Birbiglia's story. It's his well-crafted and well-traveled memoir about the year or so when he got his crap together as a c...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

For a film about the end of the world, I expected something bleaker from Abel Ferrara, whose directing credits include the fantastically dark Bad Lieutenant and King of New York. 4:44 Last Day on Earth is an indulgent experiment into intimate filmmaking, and the action is largely restricted to the flat where two artists share their final hours together. Life on earth is ending at 4:44 a.m. the next morning due to a hole in the ozone layer, and these weary souls, played by Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh, patter around aimlessly in their final minutes. 4:44 Last Day on Earth hint...Read the entire review

I'm just going to come out and say this: Trishna is a bummer.

A well-made, well-acted bummer, but a bummer all the same. Get ready for a bummer summer with Michael Winterbottom.

The British director, who has had previous good luck transposing 19thcentury literature to modern times with movies like Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story, has taken Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles and removed it from the English countryside and the late 1800s. It is now the story of a pure girl living in poverty in India who is beset upon by craven men and the opportunities they bring.

Freida Pinto (Read the entire review

Jane Fonda's 1990 retirement from the screen to focus on family and causes was understandable if unfortunate; what's less clear is why she's had so much trouble, since coming out of that retirement, finding a vehicle that isn't terrible. She's made three domestic features over the past seven years: the screeching, insufferable Monster-in-Law, the unspeakably bad Georgia Rule, and now the trite and underwhelming Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding. In its broad strokes, it is oddly similar to its predecessor: another family comedy/drama, with three generations of a women coming together under one roof, where shenanigans and warming of hearts ensue. It's a better film than that one, but that's not saying much.

Fonda stars as Grace, a hippie legend ("Dylan had...Read the entire review

The tale of the good man driven by desperate circumstances into a life of crime is one that's been told almost as often as that of the colorful bank robber who becomes a national folk hero, so a more jaded filmgoer might conclude that you're getting two overdone movies for the price of one with Nathan Morlando's Citizen Gangster. But to dismiss the film based on its logline would be a mistake--Morlando may be telling you a story you've heard, but he tells it as though he doesn't know that. Set under the perpetually overcast skies of post-war Canada, Citizen Gangster is less about the crimes than it is about the criminal, less interested in the thrill of theft than about what's going through the head of the man holding the gun. Morlando may not break any new ground her...Read the entire review

Reviewed at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival

It would be difficult to imagine a film reaping greater benefit from the sudden outbreak of Downton Abbey Fever than Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, a period British drama set in a large aristocratic home, a film even courteous enough to include Elizabeth McGovern in the matriarchal role. But the film is bound to suffer in comparison with that acclaimed series--primarily because of director Donald Rice's decision to eschew the Downton -style drollery and wit of the first act in order to focus on the rather less compelling romance at the center. Stars Felicity Jones and Luke Treadaway are charming leads, but we keep waiting for Rice to turn the mov...Read the entire review

Reviewed at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival

Polisse, the Cannes Jury Prize winner from writer/director/actor Ma wenn, opens with on-screen text, informing the viewer that the film is based upon "real life cases of the Paris CPU (Child Protection Unit)." You almost expect to hear the Law & Order sting after that, but the film itself functions as (among other things) a sharp repuke to the cleanliness and precision of television procedurals; it is more interested in reflecting the messiness of life, which does not wind itself up in 47-minute chunks.

Ma wenn juggles a large, unruly ensemble, and it takes some time and energy to sort everyone out. The players are introduced in a series of see...Read the entire review

Consider, if you will, the case of Mary Harron, the splendid writer/director behind I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho, and The Notorious Bettie Page. Her films are uncommonly intelligent, challenging, and difficult to classify; as a result, like many an iconoclastic female director (the examples of Kimberly Pearce and Lisa Cholodenko also leap to mind), she tends to go rather a long time between films. Her new picture, The Moth Diaries, is her first since Bettie Page clear back in 2005, and as good as it is to have her back, I can only wonder how much longer we would've had to wait for a new Harron movie that was any good. As it is, it's kind of depressing to see a filmmaker as gifted as this one slumming in a picture so shamelessly pitched to the Twi...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Chalet Girl is the story of Kim, who used to be a champion skateboarder until tragedy struck her life. Nowadays she flips burgers at a fast food joint in England and lives with her father and they're barely getting by on a pittance. Things change when Kim learns of a posh opportunity to work at a fancy chalet in Austria catering to the whims of rich folks for some serious cash. The gig lasts all winter long.

Kim arrives at the chalet and is met by Georgie (Tasmin Egerton), the other chalet girl that will act as her supervisor of sorts. The family that will be catered to is led by Richard (Bill Nighy) and Caroline (Brooke Shields) and they've brought their son Johnny (Bill Westwick) and his fianc e Chloe (Sophia Bush).

Some very colorful characters populate the chalet living quarters, but things air out a bit as Kim takes to the mountain for some recreational snowboar...Read the entire review

He's shaving. "Why even bother?" she asks, not unreasonably. The world's going to end at 4:44 the next morning, you see, so facial hair grooming probably shouldn't be much of a concern. And there's the question: faced with the last day of existence, would you keep those little habits in place? Would you maintain that two years of sobriety? Would you reach out to those you've neglected? What exactly would you do with those final, precious hours? These are the questions asked by 4:44 Last Day on Earth, a melancholy but compelling drama from Abel Ferrara, a filmmaker I must confess not keeping proper tabs on in the years since his breakthrough picture Bad Lieutenant. But I always knew he was out there, m...Read the entire review

David McKenzie's Perfect Sense tells a cold, frightening story with a sense of logic that is utterly arresting, and a refusal to soft-pedal its trajectory. It is not--contrary to the romantic-embrace print ad campaign, emphasizing sexy stars Ewan McGregor and Eva Green--an upbeat picture. "Without love there is nothing" reads the tagline, and whether or not that's true, the film itself presents a pretty persuasive dramatization of the inverse: a world where there's not much left but love, and who knows how much that's worth.

Michael (McGregor) is a chef; his restaurant is near the apartment of Susan (Green), a scientist. As the story begins, she's been made aware of a strange and sudden outbreak across Europe: out of nowhere, people have lost their sense of smell. SOS...Read the entire review

Reviewed at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

The friends have gathered because it's been a year since Tom's death. Al (Mike Birbiglia) gets up to say a few words about what a great guy Tom was, so kind, so thoughtful, so remarkable. From across the room, Tom's brother Jack (Mark Duplass) objects. You guys didn't know him when he was younger, Jack says. He was a bully, an asshole, and if we're going to talk about him, let's acknowledge "the full man." He raises his glass, and leaves.

This scene, which opens Lynn Shelton's Your Sister's Sister, is about as keenly-observed a dramatization of genuine social discomfort as you're likely to see in a film. It's one of several moments that have an almost documen...Read the entire review

Reviewed at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Alison Brie co-stars on Community, the funniest show on network television. Lizzy Caplan and Martin Starr were on Party Down, no slouch in the laughs department itself; she also appeared in Hot Tub Time Machine, while he's a member of the Apatow stock company. These are crackerjack comic actors, is the point, which leaves one wondering why director Michael Mohan would hi...Read the entire review

The subject of Wim Wenders' new documentary is Pina Bausch (1940-2009), the German modern dance performer and choreographer, but we don't learn all that much about her in the strict sense--there's little in the way of facts, dates, personal details, and the like. What we discover, over the course of Pina, is a sensibility, a way of seeing the world and a way of working to convey that sensibility. There are some archival clips, shown running on a 16mm projector. There are testimonials from the dancers who learned from her, but they are stylized and brief. The bulk of the film is about her work--the dance pieces that she created and often performed in, which are presented here in a manner that is exciting and ingenious.

Part of that ingenuity comes from Wenders' employm...Read the entire review

Minutes before Credit International is about to close up shop and Kaitlin (Ashley Judd) is going to head to the airport on the way to her wedding, two men with guns stride in the front door. Then, mere seconds later, three more men, also armed, appear on the stairwell. Both groups of criminals have arrived at the exact moment the bank's security system is about to get an all-important upgrade, right inside the very short window when the bank happens to have no security whatsoever. For a moment, it looks the two groups of criminals are about to play "Finders Keepers" with shotguns and assault rifles, until Tripp (Patrick Dempsey) steps in and suggests, since the two guys at the door are solely interested in the ATMs, and the three guys on the stairs want the vault, why not let everyone get on with it?

And so begins Flypaper, a heist/romance/action/comedy/thriller, written by (as the packaging a...Read the entire review

William Monahan's London Boulevard kicks off with the most joyful, tough, strap-yourself-in-cuz-we're-watchin-a-picture-show opening credit sequence in many a moon: big bold lettering, sliced-up images, and the pounding sound of the Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul." There's such fierce energy and raw power bursting from the screen that it seems like a promise the picture can hardly keep, and who knows, maybe it doesn't. In terms of plot, tone, and structure, the movie's something of a mess, full of pieces at odds with each other that Monahan is constantly struggling to snap together. He ultimately just slams them all into each other and barrels on through--and he does it with such sheer bravado and confidence that we end up going along with him. It doesn't really hang togeth...Read the entire review

Laughing through dinner with two comic geniuses is an appealing prospect, but investing in their plights is a bit trickier. The Trip, originally a six-episode BBC miniseries, has been chopped up into a feature-length film for American audiences, and the results are simultaneously hilarious and underwhelming. Watching stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (playing exaggerated versions of themselves) discuss their careers, death, awards, and do a number of celebrity impressions over some of the finest eating in England is quite funny, but neither of the actors, nor director Michael Winterbottom, are able to successfully dig very deep into the characters, turning to unnecessary devices to try to turn nothing into something when it comes to a story.

Coogan has been enlisted by The Observer to go around to a number of fine restaurants and review the dining experience. His original plan was to bring Mis...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Adrien Brody gives a hell of a performance in Wrecked, a movie that forces the actor to bear the brunt of its weight. This small-scale, claustrophobic thriller from Director Michael Greenspan is an interesting cinematic experiment. Brody's character wakes up in a wrecked Chevrolet and must fight through pain and natural elements to discover how he got there. But when stretched to feature length, this barebones story becomes a test of patience rather than a compelling thriller, despite Brody's best efforts to keep the audience involved.

Brody's character is known only as "the Man," and he awakens in a wrecked car at the bottom of a ravine. A dead man is still strapped in the backseat, and another lies contorted on the ground in f...Read the entire review

I like Joe Swanberg's movies. To be sure, I haven't seen all of them--the guy is unbelievably prolific--but over the last few months, both his recent Uncle Kent and the earlier Hannah Takes the Stairs made their way into my field of vision, and while they're very different films, both give the impression that Swanberg is one of the precious few filmmakers today who deals with sexuality properly; which is to say, he takes it seriously, but doesn't make a big deal out of it. Much of his work hinges on sex, but both the nudity (male and female) and couplings within his narratives are seen with a casualness that is downright refreshing. He assumes we're all grown-ups, and treats us as such.

Which is why his new film, Autoerotic, is such a disappointment; giv...Read the entire review

Though the credits do not list the original incarnation of "The Ledge," I'm going to assume this material was at one point intended for the stage, where its mix of monologues and hysterical characters could be broadly articulated by live actors. As a film, it's an inconsistent, flavorless psychological thriller, trying desperately to come across provocative when it's truly about as deep and challenging as a television movie.

Climbing onto the ledge of an apartment building, Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) is prepared to jump, waiting for an unseen cue to end his life. Detective Hollis (Terrence Howard) is assigned to talk him down, striking up a rapport with the troubled man, hoping to unearth the root of his troubles through conversation. Gavin happily obliges the request, detailing h...Read the entire review

"An Invisible Sign" is a film about the comfort of mathematics, yet it's seems better suited as an itchy summation of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Chaotic and bluntly condensed, the feature is difficult to watch, not due to the difficult subject matter, but the manner director Marilyn Agrelo bumbles the mystery and borderline insanity of the material. What should be a bold depiction of a frazzled mind is instead a bewildering feature with a tenuous hold on human concerns.

A gifted child, Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) has always found herself drawn to mathematics, staying as close as possible to her beloved father (John Shea). When her dad falls into an indeterminate state of psychological fracture, Mona is devastated, swearing off the pleasures of life to assist his recuperation....Read the entire review

The Trip is a free-wheeling new comedy from director Michael Winterbottom and his regular collaborator, performer Steve Coogan. (The pair previously worked together on 24 Hour Party People and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story). In this, the pair send up travel shows, putting Coogan and his acting buddy Rob Brydon (both playing themselves) on a tour through Northern England, where they spend a week sampling buzzed-about restaurants, seeing the sights, and in Steve's case, bedding random women. Amidst this, Brydon goes through being home sick and Steve wrestles with a flailing film...Read the entire review

Imagine "Sex and the City" populated with vampires and there's a crude description of the German horror film, "We Are the Night." We have four women of considerable temperament, indulging themselves with shopping, men, and the splendor of feminine companionship. And much like the ladies of "Sex and the City," this gang is made up of bloodsucking monsters desperate to stay out of the sunlight. Trust me, lead vamp Louise is such a Samantha.

Petty criminal and spunky parolee Lena (Karoline Herfurth) is barely scraping by, narrowly escaping arrest from hunky cop Tom (Max Riemelt). Lured into a hidden nightclub one night, Lena is bitten by vampire Louise (Nina Hoss), while her associates, Charlotte (Jennifer Ulrich) and Nora (Anna Fischer), stand guard, leaving the tattered ...Read the entire review

Brandishing depressingly modern ideas about "disturbing content" and an overbearing air of self-satisfaction, Red, White & Blue is the most frustrating kind of filmgoing experience: one that throws away its best idea in service of unoriginal ones. Based on the title of the film and various elements lurking within, writer/director Simon Rumley appears to think he's tearing down some curtain covering the dark side of American culture, but he's only be fooling himself to think the things he puts on display in the movie's last 30 or so minutes are shocking, groundbreaking, ballsy, or interesting with any sort of subtlety or depth.

Rumley fashions a narrative around three characters. The first is Erica (Amanda Fuller), an abused and emotionally distant girl who falls into bed with a different stranger (or strangers) every night, trying to block out her painful memories with the white noise of m...Read the entire review

Let's get it straight: when a lot of us say we are sick of vampires and/or zombies, what we really mean is we are sick of trendy cash-ins that think a pair of fangs and a funny walk a good monster make. There is nothing inherently wrong with either creature, nor are stories about them all played out. We just want those stories to be good.

Jim Mickle's Stake Land is good. It's not great, but that's okay, they need not all be genius. Stake Land is entertaining, and it has a solid story, and despite the characters all being types, I actually cared if they lived or died. The villains are vampires, but this post-apocalyptic road trip is more like a zombie picture than your usual bloodsucking actioner. In fact, it's a whole hell of a lot like Read the entire review

Reviewed at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival

Director Michael Winterbottom and actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have met before; they collaborated on the baffling yet enchanting Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, with the two actors playing both themselves and characters in the film-within-the-film. In The Trip, an improvised mockumentary/travelogue, they're only playing themselves--or, at least, an extension of the (presumably) comedically exaggerated personas that they played in the earlier film. The result is a giggly, entertaining treat, albeit one that overstays its welcome a ...Read the entire review