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The BFG

“What’s shocking here is that it took so long for Steven Spielberg to finally work for Disney. He the purveyor of the candy-coated family-friendly adventures filled to the brim with a sense of wonder and awe, often with a dash of darkness lurking underneath to keep the tension going. Is he the righ” read more

A Tale of Love and Darkness

“Props to Natalie Portman’s writing and directing debut for being such a smartly handled adaptation of a seminal work about Jewish history and identity. Does her artistic ambition exceed her grasp? Absolutely, but this is no mere vanity project by the star as much as it is a truly invigorating work” read more

The Babadook

“For my money, the best horror films are the ones where the horror can be scanned as literal or metaphorical, so enter The Babadook. Jennifer Kent’s debut horror film is a striking work of minimalism and subversion of expectations as the routine elements of a supernatural thriller are lined up then” read more

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

“Less a film on its own merits than it is something engineered to feel like a relic from Hollywood’s revolutionary period between 1967 and 1982. Does it succeed? Well, that’s more of a volatile question, isn’t it? Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a gorgeous ode to a bygone Americana, but it’s li” read more

Anna Karenina

“Emotional depth gets lost in Joe Wright’s adaptation of Anna Karenina, but it sure is beautiful to stare at. Leo Tolstoy’s novel of familial disintegration and the romance that leads to its main character’s eventual destruction is no stranger to film, so you need a new hook to make your versio” read more

The Paperboy

“I know you could say this about every Lee Daniels movie but what the hell was The Paperboy? Daniels’ films are frequently hot and bothered, highly pulpy explorations of important topics, ones that give in to a Dallas/Dynasty-like veneer of sleaze and suds more often than not, and The Paperboy is n” read more

Out of Sight

“Ostensibly a crime movie, Out of Sight is a film that’s obsessed with dialog, behavior, and movie star charisma and sensuality than it is with any particular criminal activity. This isn’t a complaint at all, merely an observation of the structure and emphasis in Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation.” read more

The Commitments

“Well, isn’t this just a fun, modest movie about a group of Dublin musicians trying to make something of themselves by playing American soul music of the 50s and 60s. there’s no great lesson to impart, which is quite refreshing, just a good time to be had watching a batch of chain-smoking, foul-m” read more

The Haunting

“Shirley Jackson’s seminal haunted house novel gets the film adaptation treatment deserving of its artistry and exemplary skill in Robert Wise’s 1963 feature, The Haunting. He captures the emotional unease of the characters, most notably Eleanor, so well and all without displaying a ghostly visio” read more

You Make It Feel Like Christmas (Deluxe Edition)

“The luxurious retro treatment of last year’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas gets five songs appended in this deluxe edition. Gwen Stefani’s vibrato still sounds energized and comfortable among the Wall of Sound-style live instrumentation, yet the selection of covers still skews too hard on the ” read more

Dreamcar

“Super-group or side-project? Probably somewhere in-between, honestly, when all is said and done given one participant’s inability to focus on anything for very long. Dreamcar is a loving ode to mid-80s synthpop in all of its glory, and something of a reductive compression of the entire genre’s m” read more

The Rugrats Movie

“A popular television makes the leap to the big screen, and the limitations of the medium become greatly apparent. What makes the television show so enjoyable in more digestible form becomes bloated, and the adage that television is merely “a movie, but longer” is proven false. Sitcoms tend to ma” read more

Dancing Queen

“In one of her many hilarious moments of self-awareness, Cher proclaimed herself the Lazarus of pop music onstage during her set at the 1999 Divas Live show. It was right before she performed “Believe,” but it could just as easily reflect her seemingly inexhaustible ability to disappear and reapp” read more