Category Archives: Reviews

Alice Howland is a woman of science, a Columbia University academic whose expertise is linguistics, the common ways babies learn languages as infants. So if anybody instantly grasps the consequences of what her neurologist tells her, it’s Alice. She’s been … Continue reading →

The first place will be in select cinemas, nationwide starting today (Black Friday, or black screen with yellow titles Friday). Starwars.com has a link to a list. iTunes posted it this AM, just a few minutes ago. Here it is. … Continue reading →

As I wrap up seeing the last of the potential Top Ten list movies for this year, I keep stumbling across this word “conventional,” which I’ve used in reviews for “The Imitation Game” and “The Theory of Everything” — both … Continue reading →

  A mop-topped six year-old sees something in the back of his mother’s station wagon. His eyes go wild with terror and he lets out a blood-curdling scream. It’s broad daylight. And even though we sympathize with his harassed, widowed … Continue reading →

Clara Mamet makes her film directing debut with “Two-Bit Waltz,” an inconsequential, self-consciously quirky coming of age comedy from an actress-playwright testing her movie-making wings at the ripe old age of 20. The castmember of TV’s “The Neighbors” has made … Continue reading →

Reviews won’t hurt “Dumb and Dumber To.” The college crowd I caught it with ate it up. Granted, they weren’t Ivy Leaguers, but I dare say a generation that grew up with the original semi-raunchy Two Stooges Throwback are going … Continue reading →

Gloom gathers over the movie “Foxcatcher.” The skies are perpetually grey and the only time we see don’t see red leaves tumbling to the ground is when they’re covered with snow. We know something fatal is coming, even if our … Continue reading →

There’s a hint of the Dust Bowl in Oscar-winner Hilary Swank’s face — a worn, rawboned quality straight out of a Walker Evans photograph. That makes her the perfect Mary Bee Cuddy, the sturdy not-quite-old-maid of Tommy Lee Jones’ film, … Continue reading →

  There’s something about motorcycles and motorcycle documentaries that brings out the kid in us all. The immediacy of the experience, the speed, the hair’s breadth away from danger — good films get across the intoxicating hobby and sport that … Continue reading →

November is when critics start to wrap up their screenings of the Top Ten List contenders, from “Instellar” and “Rosewater” and soon to open films with Oscar buzz, to “Foxcatcher” and tonight’s outing, “The Theory of Everything.” As Stephen Hawking … Continue reading →