Downton Abbey the movie pulls off exactly what it offers, no more, no less. For die-hard fans of the smash hit Brit costume drama with the comforting naivite of the ‘70s BBC show Upstairs, Downstairs, and the biting wit and intrigue of Robert Altman's last great film, Gosford Park (Written by Abbey creator Julian Fellowes), there's a lot to be enthralled by and fall in love with here. For anyone else who might not know the show at all or, like me, has a passing familiarity with it, the movie, which operates like a sped-up seventh season rather than a narrative fit for single feature consumption, probably won't mean much. Of course that doesn't mean that I couldn't see the value in it for the fans.

Walking into the movie, I thought I was thoroughly unprepared and figured that I'd be lost most of the time. It turns out that I've seen enough of the show in periphery while m...Read the entire review

Spike Lee has directed 83 projects; that's a lot. Steven Spielberg has directed 57, and it feels like he's been around for a hundred years and been the creator of every good movie made in that imaginary century, so 83 is a pretty high number. Lee has done features, shorts, documentaries, TV; the sixty-one-year-old has been around the block and told a million tales, but his latest film might be his best yet. Chi-Raq was bold, Old Boy was a mistake, St. Anna was weird, but these modern movies aren't indicative of his talent, and it's been a long time since 25th Hour, Summer of Sam, He Got Game, Malcolm X. But B...Read the entire review

Fred Rogers was the host of a handful of children's shows on public television, the longest-lasting being Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001.

Most folks reading this review don't need to be told who Mister Rogers is. If he wasn't a part of your childhood, growing up in front of the TV, then maybe you've glimpsed him in any number of the video clips or memes t...Read the entire review

The Movie:

There's a certain sense of personal anticipation for me when it comes to Phantom Thread; it's the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, whose work I've admired since first seeing Boogie Nights as I'm sure we all did, and I've tried to carve out time to see everything he does since; the star, Daniel Day-Lewis, worked previously on There Will Be Blood with PTA and the big buzz around this film was that he decided he would be retiring from acting after it. So there was a lot coming into the film to like.

DDL plays Reynolds Woodcock, a fashion designer in the mid-1950s in London. His acuity in creating and making clothes for the high society is only nearly matched by his high-maintenance personality. He has a desire for control which he...Read the entire review

Paul Thomas Anderson is near the top of my short list of favorite directors, perhaps only behind Wes Anderson; apparently I have a thing for Nordic filmmakers. His movies are an amazing blend of speed, wit, and humor, dashed with darkness that he sometimes lifts us out of and sometimes lets us wallow in. Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master, Read the entire review

On the surface, Phantom Thread's premise is as far away from anything I'd be personally interested in as you can get. I have less than zero interest in fashion or dressmaking, and find the usual elitist smugness I get from the best creators in that business to be suffocatingly annoying. As far as my cinematic taste is concerned, as much as I believe in the old adage that the quality of a film is tied to how it executes it subject matter, and not the subject matter itself, I'm usually weary about investing my time in stuffy period dramas about the unspoken feelings between stuffy rich people. All of that being said, of course I was going to be the first in line when the press screening for Paul Thomas Anderson's latest was announced. I was still dealing with an especially formidable cold that day, and still made it a point to make the trip. Hell, I would have gone if I were bleeding profusely ...Read the entire review

Some graphic novels work as film adaptations (300), and some do not (Watchmen), but the fact that this relatively obscure medium is becoming both more public and more respected is good for all areas of art. Not every single attempt to bring these stories to life on the big screen is going to go according to plan, but I do appreciate the work put into both the novels themselves and their movie versions, because wow that's a lot of effort. Atomic Blonde is Hollywood's latest stab at bringing a modern comic to a new audience, and credit David Leitch for moving from stunt coordinator to movie collaborator to film director; that c...Read the entire review

It's been a while since Sofia Coppola has directed a piece of work stemming from somebody else's storytelling, dating back nearly twenty years prior to the release of The Beguiled, her latest atmospheric period thriller. From concepts that are entirely of her creation (Lost in Translation and Somewhere) to expanded dramatizations of real events (The Bling Ring and Marie Antoinette), the originality inherent in her perspective hasn't had to play by the rules of adaptation since her rendition of Jeffrey Eugenides's novel, The Virgin Suicides. Even with that one, Coppola's first directorial effort, she imparted her own techniques and thematic concentrations upon the narrative, tweaking the surreal atmosphere into something of her own. ...Read the entire review

As a film critic, one of the responsibilities each writer juggles is how to approach spoilers. In some cases, aspects of a film that many readers would consider spoilers are also necessary to write about the film's qualities. That's true of The Book of Henry, skyrocketing director Colin Trevorrow's little indie detour between Jurassic World and the ninth Star Wars movie -- the reason being that Henry is a wild fumble of tone and material, packed to the brim with bad and/or inexplicable narrative and dramatic choices, all of which are played with an astonishingly straight face.

The movie starts out cloying, but relatively simple. Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) is the precocious movie kid to end all precocious movie kids, an obnoxiously cute genius, more interested in keeping an eye on the family's finances while he works the stock market than playing video games. Instead,...Read the entire review

At the risk of making light of death, watching A Monster Calls felt like watching a hundred-minute inside joke that wasn't funny in the least. First, there's the book, an unfinished work written by first Siobhan Dowd and later Patrick Ness, following Dowd's death. I haven't read it, it doesn't mean anything to me, and so I have no basis for emotion, not even enough to empathize with the fact that Dowd herself was dying of cancer as she wrote the story, adding extra meaning to its plot. Secondly, Sigourney Weaver. Watching the film at home, I still felt the urge to look around me, to see if there was a prank being played that I w...Read the entire review

Nocturnal Animals is somehow genius while also not being the best film of the year, excellently made while not being perfect, likeable but in no way lovable. Now, in the words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me esplain." What Tom Ford does in adapting the novel and directing it for the screen is put a story within a story, a metaphorical plot within an actual one. This allows him to be as cheesy, over-dramatic, unbelievable, sensationalizing, and crowd-pleasing as he likes without diminishing the actual quality of his artistic movie. In essence, he can get away with murder while keeping his hands clean, an apt analogy given the context of this thr...Read the entire review

The thought that might creep into one's mind when they hear that a fashion designer has directed a motion picture might be one of artifice, that they've concentrated on style above substance in how they've brought their talents to a storytelling medium. Tom Ford's soulful adaptation of A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood's novel about the lingering effects of losing a loved one, proved that the designer has far more tricks up his sleeve than the glamours and expression of aesthetics, instead paving the way for sheer enthusiasm toward his next project. Ford's second feature, Nocturnal Animals, channels the polish of his freshman film into a layered, challenging psychological drama that explores grief, redemption, and how humans perceive masculinity and strengt...Read the entire review

My love for Jeff Nichols is beginning to know bounds, I'm sad to say, as his newest film Loving follows the same path as his last film Midnight Special, down the road to disappointment. Both films are full of stars, full of promise, full of drama, but also full of holes, as they fail to live up to the expectations set by two other, much stronger of his films, Take Shelter and Mud. Those early successes paved the way for Nichols' growing genius, but his latest attempts just haven't delivered in the way I had hop...Read the entire review

Several years ago, the Portland-based animation company Laika Entertainment emerged on the scene with the dazzling Coraline, a stop-motion journey into a mythical world adapted from the works of Neil Gaiman. Filled with dark whimsy and meaningful allegory, the Henry Selick-directed story put the animation studio on the map with its hypnotic, outlandish fusion of reality and nightmarish fantasy. Since then, the studio has been chasing after that same kind of artistic success, yet their following works -- ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls -- have been jaw-dropping works of ...Read the entire review

Over the past five years, Tom Hooper & Eddie Redmayne have been awards mainstays, bursting onto the scene and demanding our attention. Hooper with The King's Speech & Les Miserables, Redmayne with My Week with Marilyn & The Theory of Everything, the pair reuniting here with The Danish Girl. They are joined by Alicia Vikander, who could not possibly be having a stronger or more explosive year, with Read the entire review

I keep waiting for Jude Law to get old and he never does. And I mean in that in two different ways. The guy never seems to age, keeping those English good looks well into his 40s. For this role it looked like the makeup department was trying desperately to make him look less attractive, more like a shmoe, and that's just not happening. Also, I just never get tired of the guy. He's been a Hollywood mainstay since the late 90s, attacking the screen with role after role, and although you could say that he may have gone through a slump in the late 2000s, there's no denying his continual star power. Law is back on track in this submarine thril...Read the entire review

I feel like I've been able to watch Eddie Redmayne's career develop every step of the way. I'm sure this is erroneous, but at the very least I've seen a few of his benchmark films, the movies in which he's grown into the excellent actor he is today. The first time I saw him was in Powder Blue, a mediocre stories-tied-together drama that also starred Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, and Jessica Biel. Redmayne stood out, with an unusual look for Hollywood and a unique presence. I didn't think too much about him until I saw him again in Les Miserables. He played Marius, and played him well, stepping into the spotlight for the first time ...Read the entire review

When I first saw the trailer for The Boxtrolls it of course reminded me of Coraline. Makes sense, it's a film done by the same company, Laika, a team that specializes in stop-motion animation. It's a style that takes years of pain-staking work, so they've only ever produced three movies; Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), and The Boxtrolls (2014). Their next project will be Wildwood, a creepy young adult story about a kidnapping, an adventure, and a rescue. Sounds cool and should be, if it's anything like the other movies created by this company. Going back to the film at hand,...Read the entire review

Zach Braff hasn't directed a cinematic feature since Garden State in 2004. That movie is held by many to be a bit of a masterpiece, a modern cult classic that veered away from Hollywood mainstream and became something greater. I had high hopes that ten years later Braff could deliver the same kind of magic, a story that spoke to us because it was weirdly honest and believably abnormal. Watching the trailer, I got the feeling that we were in for something spectacular, a movie on the level of Little Miss Sunshine, a film that was something more than what it appeared. I guess, since those are both 5-star m...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
Jason Bateman succeeds in front of and behind the camera

The Movie
A full-grown man enters an eighth-grade spelling bee, and proceeds to systematically decimate his kiddie competitors with evil glee, before befriending one of the more adorable and precocious of the bunch. If that doesn't sound like the synopsis of a standard early-career Adam Sandler comedy, what does? However, Bad Words, which stars Jason Bateman as Guy Trilby, that full-grown man, couldn't be farther from a Billy Madison if it was directed by Spielberg. It is ...Read the entire review

Popular comic underdog Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) steps behind the camera to make his feature-length directorial debut with Bad Words, a comedy that will probably get a lot of notice for its unrelenting mean streak and not for any of the emotion that peeks through from underneath. Which is too bad, because it's a pretty entertaining comedy if you give yourself over to it.

Bateman stars as Guy Trilby, an angry 40-year-old who has decided to exploit a loophole buried in the rules of the Golden Quill National Spelling Bee and compete as an adult. The bylaws only require that a participant not have passed the eighth grade, there is no restriction placed on age. Having never o...Read the entire review

Bad Words represents my first ever pre-release promo screening. I got to go the theatre for free, check out the movie, and I guess the hope is that I'll spread the good word. A pretty sweet deal really, made all the better by there being zero trailers or commercials before the film and it starting exactly on time. I might not typically choose to see a vulgar comedy, not my style I guess, but such is the life of a film critic; I guess I'll let you show me your new movie and then tell people what I thought, just another taxing day at the office. But all joking aside, it was a cool experience and one I hope to repeat. Now, on to Bad Wor...Read the entire review

Talk about surprise Oscar buzz. Here is a film that was flying way under the radar and then leaped into the conversation. What changed? People saw it. It's a pretty good sign when no one is talking about a film and then as soon as advanced screenings run their course no one can stop talking it. When I first saw the trailer in August I thought it looked edgy, interesting, and well done. But I had concerns about the cast. I knew Jared Leto would be good, but Matthew McConaughey is a really big wild card, delivering awful & wonderful performances seemingly at random. But my biggest concern was Jennifer Garner. There aren't many...Read the entire review

Matthew McConaughey turns his usual playboy persona on its head in the heart-rending drama Dallas Buyers Club. He plays Ron Woodroof, a Texas party boy who works as an electrician out on the oil fields. In 1985, Woodroof was diagnosed with HIV and given thirty days to live. As best he could guess, he contracted the virus from unprotected sex with a woman who used intravenous drugs. Though a cokehead and a boozer, he didn't use needles himself, and given that he was a complete homophobe, there was no way he would have gotten it from another man.

Facing death, Woodroof started to take life seriously. At a time when AZT was only just starting to be tested, any medical recourse was out of reach. It wasn't until he met a doctor in Mexico who believed in alternative treatmen...Read the entire review

The new movie from Blue Valentine auteur Derek Cianfrance feels like a misfired adaptation of a sprawling American novel, like someone trying to take the whole of Steinbeck's East of Eden and bring the literary soap opera together in as close to two hours as possible. When such efforts fail, it's for trying to include too much and yet invariably not including enough, losing the essence of the material. That the 140-minute The Place Beyond the Pines comes across as having the same problems, and yet is a wholly original effo...Read the entire review