The Film:

Most of us expect cinema to be habitually kinetic, whether it is a narrative hurtling forth into the (hopeful) unknown or a pace that is sometimes tense or unrelenting. Sitting down to watch Tran Anh Hung's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's internationally renowned novel, one isn't sure what to expect. Having never poured over the novel, this writer walked into the film in the dark, and boy does he regret it - met with a meandering bit of arthouse cinema, his hopes withered at the forty-five minute mark. Tran Anh Hung, directing his second film after a nine year sabbatical, elects to tell Murakami's almost deceptively simplistic (or maybe just plain simple) story through punishing long takes that, while undoubtedly beautifully composed by hugely talented cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin, keep the film at an uncomfortable distance.

Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" is ostensibly the story ...Read the entire review

The Film:

Insofar as cruel fates go, Deborah Peagler certainly drew a tragic lot in life: a promising student, she fell into the clutches of Oliver Wilson, who allegedly abused young Deborah and ultimately muscled her into prostitution. Her relationship with Oliver came to an unduly tragic end when Deborah's mother enlisted local gang members to supply a memorable warning - tensions boiled over, and by day's end, Oliver was dead. Tried for playing a part in the murder in 1983, Peagler was compelled to plead guilty after the prosecution threatened to pursue the death penalty. Her sentence was twenty five to life.

Yoav Potash's documentary Crime After Crime picks up in the midst of pro bono work by two attorneys, Nadia Costa and Joshua Safran (whose observance of Orthodox Judaism is smartly not blown out of proportion but instead incorporated as a source of strength and purpose in his ...Read the entire review

The Film:

Ah, the dreamy 90s, when independent film finally bled into the mainstream and a former porn-theater-usher-slash-video-store-clerk exploded on the scene with a brutal verbose crime film. How we got there has been detailed in all its intricacy by career journalist Peter Biskind in his two must-read books Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures. Would Biskind agree with this writer in condemning Sam Henry Kass' The Search for One-Eye Jimmy as an irritable slice-of-Brooklyn-life ham sandwich that landed an outstanding ensemble cast and proceeded to waste their considerable talents? This is a film that skates bare on charm alone, and frequently even that is not enough.

In resurrecting Kass' debut feature, Kino Lorber smartly chose to highlight the cast, despite the fact that several members appear for, at most, five minutes, if not less. The morsel of...Read the entire review

What to make of Reggie Watts? Is he a trained comedian (most probably) or a crazy man with a passion for terrifically awful sweaters and/or suspenders who speaks his mind while spinning irresistible siren songs that combine beautiful, seemingly created-on-the-spot music with asinine (intentionally so) lyrics? Take some sample lyrics from his song "F*** S*** Stack," probably the most commercial effort this writer has seen from Watts:

I like women

I like the concept of a woman

I like to take that concept and reduce it to an object

I like to take those objects and put 'em in my videos

Have them shake they jiggly bits so they looks like hoes

It helps to add that the video is send-up of hip-hop tropes delivered in the most literal sense possible and combined with images that occasionally wouldn't look out of place on late-night MTV way back when.

Watts is funny, no doubt, but he's als...Read the entire review

The Film:

It seems like every couple of weeks the media reminds us how little we understand of the long-term emotional and mental scars bore by the men and women fighting overseas. Director Liza Johnson's tempered, subdued yet emotionally resonant Return doesn't attempt to spell out how Kelli (a humble, skilled balancing act by a terrific Linda Cardellini), a National Guard reservist returning from a tour of duty with the possibility of being called into action again, obtains the damage that in no short time derails her work and fractures her home life. Johnson, who also penned the script, smartly doesn't look for answers but presents a portrait that remains compelling for the entirety of the film's 90-minute runtime. The director has an enviable asset in Cardellini, who turns in a performance that is barely showy and never maudlin, imbuing a conflicted, error-prone character with sympa...Read the entire review

The Film:

When passionate film geeks put their brains together at the end of the year and produce countless lists highlighting 2012s biggest cinematic surprises, it wouldn't surprise this writer one bit to see Chronicle on many a one. With only a few episodes of the show Kill Point to his name, director Josh Trank successfully marries a small-scale domestic drama with some big-time visuals, while screenwriter Max Landis (see if you can guess who his dad is) formulates a plot that, while unashamedly a construct of a dozen familiar strands, finds novelty in how it approaches the basic idea of three teenagers obtaining and nurturing superpowers. With unknown Dane DeHaan in the lead, Chronicle is not without significant faults (we'll discuss several of them below) but the old-school appeal of a non-sarcastic film that embraces its outlandish premise is hard to pass up.

Whate...Read the entire review

The Film:

It usually only take one backyard tumble or one bloody scrape in a fight to realize that the movies make it all look so beautiful. Real violence comes in an unsteady flurry of punches delivered by unchiseled bruisers looking to hurt, and bad. Ian Palmer's Knuckle has that notoriously winning combination of real violence and dangerous men that has made the internet a frequent madhouse whenever a particularly loathsome street fight shows up on the interwebs. Unfortunately, in covering the often verbal and occasionally physical infighting between two close-knit Irish Traveler families, Palmer, despite following the clans for over a decade, fails to conjure much in the way of substance. That leaves Knuckle in a rut of bad feelings and swollen fists, and not much else.

The genesis for this documentary saga becomes innocently enough, with Palmer acting as shooter-for-hire a...Read the entire review

The Film:

Several times deep into El Bulli's generous running time of nearly two hours, this writer had to remind himself, briefly but firmly, that one is supposed to be engrossed and awed by the culinary expertise on display. Watching Ferran Adrià (a preternaturally stoic man whose unflappable demeanor suggests a thicker Henry Silva) gesture infrequently and deliver statements that sound like occasional self-parody, director Gereon Wetzel's approach to the documentary becomes puzzling with every passing minute. Presented as observational cinema, with barely any background on the restaurant's haute cuisine status or why it's attracting attention worthy of a feature-length doc (though nowadays everything halfway impressive is obsessively recorded), El Bulli quickly loses its novelty.

Certainly the subtitle attached to Bulli is more than an afterthought - "Cooking in Prog...Read the entire review

The Show:

Pendleton Ward's brainchild Adventure Time defies simple description - think of it instead as a Pandora app for your imagination. The magnificent flights of whimsy the show revels in are refreshingly unselfconscious, devoid of sarcasm and so sincere it may throttle you back into your childhood, where all things were new and a scoff was an unfamiliar sound. Is this writer laying it on thick? Maybe so, but It Came From the Nightosphere, a mixtape of episodes, some bearing very satisfying links, is a perfect introduction to the unbound world of Finn (Jeremy Shada) and Jake (John DiMaggio), a dynamic human boy and an infinitely elastic dog.

My colleague Tyler Foster, who provided a terrific review of this DVD, awarded It Came From the Nightosphere a Rent It due to the fact that full season sets are on the way. This writer is tempted to agree, but with a sing...Read the entire review

The Film:

It would be erroneous to dismiss Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson, assuming the rapper thinks of his foray into acting as a lark. The Mario Van Peebles-directed, Chinua Achebe-spurned All Things Fall Apart is a gutpunch in the face of those assumptions, a gloomy drama that provides Jackson with a largely able cast and a leading role pregnant with drama (nevermind the much ballyhooed weight loss). Unfortunately, the film is a wild miscalculation of both tone and performances, a mess of tired cliches and unintentional humor. Jackson tries hard, genuinely digging in his heels and willing this acting thing to work, but he is simply not a charismatic actor, and what we are left with is an able hip hop star standing with his mouth slightly agape while the supporting cast spews tears all over the scenery with abandon.

All Things gets off to a running start, despite a major stumbling...Read the entire review

The Film:

The Catechism Cataclysm is, at its best, like a carefully-worded letter from a secret admirer. Lovingly packed away in a snug envelope, perhaps adorned with some original artwork, your first impulse is joy, a warm feeling that comes from knowing someone cares enough to have taken the time. Then you start to notice that this person knows entirely too much about you. Details jump out from an otherwise head-over-heels venerable letter - the specifics of your house, the mole on your wife's left cheek, what your kids wore last Tuesday. You suddenly begin to sweat, shaking off a lasting chill running down your spine. Just what is going on here?

Todd Rohal's oddball film, partially funded via Kickstarter ($50 or more gets you a prank call to the individual of your choice from Rohal, DP Ben Kasulke and Longstreet!), begs the same question. The strengths of The Catechism Cataclysm...Read the entire review

The Film:

There's no point in making any fuss about it - Tanner Hall caught this writer's eye almost entirely due to Rooney Mara, whose upcoming performance in the Fincher-adapted The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo granted this picture (originally produced in 2009) a reprise and a brief theatrical window. Now, having devoted the requisite ninety-odd minutes to Tanner Hall, it's not hard to see why it fell through the cracks - it's a low-stakes coming of age tale brimming with recycled elements that have been done better in better films. That said, it is puzzling that the elegantly-shot and scored film, with a fresh-faced and talented cast and a more-than-capable lead performance from Mara had such a bumpy road to the silver screen.

With the title referring to a New England (Rhode Island specifically, as the director's commentary illuminates) boarding school, we are introduc...Read the entire review

Steve Coogan has always struck me as a complex character. Even in an innocuous crowdpleaser like Frank Coraci forgetful bomb Around the World in 80 Days, Coogan seems so damn eager to please that watching his usually buoyant wit sink fast is almost painful. That said, Steve Coogan Live is unlikely to turn around critics of the comedian, especially as it features his latest comedy special Alan Partridge And Other Less Successful Characters, Coogan's poorly received 2009 return to stand-up. The material here, coming in at a massive 239 minutes, including the three major stand-up specials the comedian performed in 1994, 1998, and 2009, respectively, as well as highlights from his Australian tour and a few inspired extras. Certainly not the monster offering that is The Steve Coogan Collection (reviewed ...Read the entire review

The Film:

How do you begrudge such a goofy fun-loving picture? Hardly flawless and showing it's budget-induced fringes a quarter of the time, Beto Gómez's Saving Private Perez boasts an irresistible premise - a Mexican drug kingpin and a ragtag team of largely doughy enforcers travel to Iraq in order to rescue the boss' younger brother. Aside from the title and the goal of the mission, the nuances of Spielberg's would-be '98 Best Picture winner aren't granted even the tip of a cowboy hat. Instead, Gómez zeroes in on Julian Pérez (Miguel Rodarte), the head of what appears to be a vibrant crime family and a man who practices soft-spoken ferocity.

Julian is more of a Corleone than a Montana, and Saving Private Perez doles out brief flashbacks that show a young and fearless Julian beginning to hone the skill and will that would aid his rise to the top. Rodarte is a capable thes...Read the entire review

The Film:

The toast of last year's Sundance surely had to be Sean Durkin's slow-burn drama about a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen, who deservedly broke out as an indie darling) taking refuge from an upstate-New York cult at her sister Lucy's (Sarah Paulson) manor-esque home. Does Martha Marcy May Marlene manage to live up to the hype generated by an overblown festival reception and the warm critical acceptance that followed? Yes and no - Olsen doesn't disappoint, but the film as a whole wrestles with a grating pace that sees the audience consistently well ahead of the meager plot.

It's reasonable to refer to the film as more of a character study than a traditional narrative, but even so, illuminating the personality quirks of a cult defector surely can be done in tune with an engaging and dramatically potent plot. Instead, Olsen's Martha (the title's many names are poignant but not wort...Read the entire review

The Film:

Jerzy Skolimowski, most familiar to movie-goers as the hard-drinking, casually racist and fiercely familial Uncle Stepan of Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, has also had a varied career as a film director, having generated most of his filmography in his native Poland. His Uncle Stepan came off as so igrained that it was difficult to tell whether the filmmaker is this prickly in real life or just a terrific actor. His choice of lead for Essential Killing certainly hints at a shared kinship/madness/what have you - Vincent Gallo portrays a nameless (listed in the credits as Muhammad) extremist who is captured by US forces, shipped off to a detention center, water-boarded, and shipped off again to a geographically unmoored, heavily snowed-in region.

A vicious car crash later, Gallo is on the run, one man in an orange jumpsuit thrown into a inhospitable environment, an unde...Read the entire review

The Film:

Polish filmmaker Lech Majewski has been making films for more than thirty years, and while I can't speak to the breadth of his filmography, if The Mill and The Cross is anything to go by, Majewski gets an A+ for effort. In telling the story of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting The Way to Calvary, Majewski attempts to not only depict the humongous artwork, which juxtaposes Jesus' crucifixion with religious persecution of the Flemish by the Spanish Inquisition, but also to illuminate the impulses and catalysts that drove Bruegel to depict the events just so.

As a live-action deconstruction of The Way to Calvary, the film is a prime example of that unique magic made possible only by the silver screen - aided by intelligently deployed CGI to breathe life into the sprawling landscape and the massive cast populating the work. The depths of certain shots and th...Read the entire review

The Show:

Jon Glaser hits on a terrific idea in Delocated, an idea he then proceeds to inject with a doze of absurdity that may alienate some viewers unused to the Adult Swim late night programming block. The concept - a family in the witness protection program getting their own reality show - would be engaging if played straight, but Delocated has decidedly deadpan aspirations, parody of reality television aside. This two-season set, while light on extras (though, in the spirit of the show, there is plenty of on-set goofing around included) should have an easy time converting fans while avid watchers will be able to snatch up the solid collection.

Jon Glaser stars as "Jon," confined to a ski mask and speaking with the aid of a pitch shifter, and the star of his own reality show. Based in New York, Jon is protected by a host of black-suited earpiece-fitted agents while bumbling...Read the entire review

The Film:

When the capably cut promo materials for a film are more capable of eliciting an emotional reaction than the nearly two-hour feature, you know something is wrong. One Day, Lone Scherfig's adaptation of David Nicholls' bestseller and the Danish director's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated and generally warmly received An Education, opened in August to occasionally scathing but largely indifferent reviews. The film was still a success at the box office, making well over three times it's modest budget. Perhaps producers were hoping for a haul along the lines of Love And Other Drugs, another Anne Hathaway starrer that broke $100 million, but this well-acted but tonally flat film was unlikely to connect with audiences beyond the initial haul.

This is the story of Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess, continuing to put in acceptable but not outstanding work), who ...Read the entire review

The Film:

You've no doubt heard this before - Koji Wakamatsu's Caterpillar is a film that is much easier to respect than to enjoy. Based on a short story by Edogawa Rampo that was banned prior to publication, Wakamatsu, who got his start in the mid 1960's with the ever-popular soft-core "pink films," presents Caterpillar as a damning critique of the jingoism and militarism that defined mid-twentieth century Japan. It's an unsubtle film that is prone to on-the-nose metaphors and plunges into hysterics, but also a powerful, and depressing indictment of those who glorify warfare and posit wounds as honors afforded to the bravest soldiers.

Lieutenant Kurokawa (Keigo Kasuya), shown in an opening scene raping and killing an unnamed Chinese woman, returns to his prototypical village a limbless torso, deaf and half his face covered with burn scars. The man is glorified as a War God, hi...Read the entire review

The Film:

Director Renny Harlin's Five Days of War ends with one of most exploitative, tasteless moments I've seen in recent years. After shoving a blatantly overblown fable down our throats, the film trots out real people who lost loved ones in the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. It's heartbreaking but also sickening that a film of such low pedigree would dare to confuse reality with the fiction that Harlin fetishistically portrays, obsessing over crane shots and sweeping camera moves glorifying the Russian armed forces, here portrayed by vehicles lent by Georgia - considering that the $12 million budget came primarily from Georgian sources (including a possible government fund), it's not surprising that what we get is slick and mindless propoganda.

Opening with the quote "The first casualty of war is the truth," Harlin's film proceeds to almost gleefully trample all over that adage. With t...Read the entire review

The Film:

Hopped up out the bed, turn my swag on

Took a look in the mirror said what's up?

Yeah, I'm getting money, oh

-Soulja Boy, "Turn My Swag On"

It's very easy to hate DeAndre Way, the twenty one year old musician who rose to massive prominence with the song "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" and the signature dance that accompanied it. His beats are frequently uninspired and his lyrics rhyme infrequently at best - never mind the fact that the subject matter is so utterly juvenile that when Way is asked whether he anticipates a sophomore slump with his second album, you might think "Really? Is there a way to make a lesser product?" But let's brush those resentful thoughts away for the moment, in light of Peter Spirer's most recent documentary Soulja Boy: The Movie, a look at the phenomenon and the self-promoting phenom that is Soulja Boy Tell 'Em.

Spirer is probably best k...Read the entire review

The Film:

As part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim 2003 line-up, the anime adaptation of Yasuhiro Nightow's manga Trigun quickly won an American following - it wasn't an insubstantial show, but the style is what initially attracted a largely teenage audience (myself included) to it. Taking place on a planet where water is a rarity and cities pockmark the desert landscape, the show played out like a lesser Sergio Leone flick on steroids, trading in a silent and hardened protagonist for Vash The Stampede, a buffoon with a massive bounty on his head (double dollars, y'all). Yet as the show went on and more of Vash's background was revealed, stakes materialized and the character deepened. Released twelve years after the anime ended it's run in Japan, Trigun: Badlands Rumble is a terrifically animated, partially satisfying Trigun feature.

Boasting a widescreen look and digital...Read the entire review

The Film:

Buck Brannaman is no horse whisperer, but he is definitely a horse talker, an equine conversationalist with a light touch and a relaxed Midwestern drawl. Brannaman is a horse trainer and a former rodeo circuit child star, a difficult past fraught with tragedy and abuse. Director Cindy Meehl, here making her debut, has made a tasteful, thoughtful if not particularly filling tribute to the man and his unique method of approaching horses as a friend, not an overlord. Buck is a documentary that starts strong, coasting on Brannaman low-key self-assurance and then bogs down a bit by focusing on the routine horse training "clinics" that keep Brannaman employed and traveling cross country forty weeks of the year.

The most compelling aspects of Buck pop up very early on - Meehl smartly avoids giving us the full details behind Brannaman's childhood but allows the man to speak o...Read the entire review

The Series:

Three minutes into the second season of HBO's animated The Life and Times of Tim, a bearded, forever downtrodden Tim (showrunner and mastermind Steve Dildarian) stands on a box next to a significantly more disheveled homeless man. Tim, set adrift by his break-up with Amy (Mary Jane Otto), has grown out his beard in an attempt to...well, even he can't articulate it particularly well. With a cadre of coworkers and his nameless boss (Peter Giles) presiding over the two men, a judgment is made - the homeless guy, with his scruffy beard and shredded clothing, is clearly better put together than Tim. As Tim's meek, nearly deadpan protests are cast aside, you may get a definite inkling whether this show is to your liking.

The animated offering from HBO fits snugly into the network's programming block - as my colleague Jason Bailey stated in his Read the entire review

The Film:

Foreign hits usually don't translate well outside the home market, and Xiaogang Feng's Aftershock, originally titled Tangshan Great Earthquake is no exception. Premiering in July 2010 in an unprecedented 5,000 theaters and 14 IMAX screeners, Aftershock was very much engineered to be a commercial behemoth - and so it was, with earnings approaching $80 million on a budget in the mid 20s. Back in 2010, The Wall Street Journal dubbed director Xiaogang the most commercially successful Chinese filmmaker, which does explain why this film, beginning with a CGI-assisted depiction of the 4am 1976 earthquake that leveled Tangshan, an industrial city, home to 1.6 million, is a crowd-pleaser and an avowed tearjerker. What rescues Aftershock from obscurity - dropping unceremonio...Read the entire review