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Hoax: Compliance
The text alerting us that Compliance is based on a true story is so large that at the E Street Theater in Washington, DC, it overflowed the screen and crawled onto the walls. A projectionist's error,...
View ArticleMickey Rourke: Highs & Lows - Video Tribute
An introduction to the above video:A few months ago, I finally got around to watching Rumble Fish for the first time. It's a compelling film in a number of ways, not least of which is that it captures...
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Touching the Void: The Master
Over Paul Thomas Anderson's still rather young career, he's repeatedly drawn male characters whose ambition seems to be a direct byproduct of intense loneliness. Some of these characters do well to...
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I See Dull People: Looper
In the big picture, it's almost always meaningless to compare recent releases to one another, unless that comparison is actually concerned with the time period in which those movies were released — as...
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Mo Money, Mo Problems: Broke
If you follow baseball even slightly, you've probably heard about a little controversy we've had here in Washington, DC, about the shutdown of Stephen Strasburg. If you're unfamiliar, the gist is this:...
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Seeing is Disbelieving: 9.79*
When sprinter Usain Bolt won the gold medal in the 100-meter dash at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, we were shocked but not surprised. Bolt's time of 9.69 was otherworldly, and he achieved it despite...
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Sympathy for the Blue Devils: There's No Place Like Home
It might have worked as a short. ESPN Films has released two of them so far in its "30 for 30" spinoff series. The first, on Pete Rose's life as a memorabilia peddler, is just under eight minutes long....
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When Less is More: Argo
The closing credits sequence for Argo, a movie about the CIA's bizarre covert operation designed to safely return six Americans from Iran amidst the 1979 hostage crisis by disguising them as members of...
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Tragically Familiar: Benji
If Benji feels like a tour of familiar territory for ESPN Films' "30 for 30" franchise, there's a reason. Chronicling the short life and premature death of 1980s Chicago basketball prospect Ben Wilson,...
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A Blockbuster Store in One Blockbuster: Cloud Atlas
Cloud Atlas switches storylines, timelines and genres like someone flipping through their multi-channel Starz package. There's a 19th century historical drama that unfolds on a sailing vessel against...
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Old Times They Are Not Forgotten: Ghosts of Ole Miss
"What is the cost of knowing our past? What is the cost of not?" That's the quandary driving Ghosts of Ole Miss, the latest entry in ESPN Films' "30 for 30" series, which pokes at a 50-year-old wound...
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Sympathy for the Denzel: Flight
More often than not, when we think about cinema's great performances — from Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull to Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, from Gloria...
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A Film Divided: Lincoln
My favorite shot in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln— indeed, one of my favorite shots of the year — observes the titular president exiting the telegraph office in the still of the night, leaving behind two...
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Song of the Self: Holy Motors
Every so often a movie comes along that makes me grateful I never attempted to make my living as a film critic. Most recently, it was Leos Carax's Holy Motors, which is so simultaneously meticulous and...
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Passion Play: Anna Karenina
To think of Joe Wright's filmography is to think of his showy extended takes and elaborate camera movements, which is precisely how he wants it. Wright's four-minute tracking shot in Atonement— the...
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Wielding a Butter Knife: Hitchcock
If you're going to direct a film called Hitchcock, you'd better have a name like Spielberg. Otherwise you're just asking for it. Sacha Gervasi might as well wear a "KICK ME" sign. His second feature...
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Shiny and New: Samsara
If the essence of cinema is visual storytelling, Samsara is the purest cinema experience of the year. Directed by Ron Fricke, it's a documentary without narration, dialogue or central characters —...
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Everything Old Is New Again: Skyfall
By the time I got around to seeing Skyfall, I was aware that it had been called (at least perhaps) the best Bond movie of all time. By whom and how many, I'm not sure, because this wasn't stuff I was...
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Printing the Legend: You Don't Know Bo
Let's be honest: as the 1980s became the 1990s, none of us had a clue why we suddenly needed "cross-training" shoes. But there was never any doubt that Bo Jackson was the right guy to sell them —...
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Best Movie Posters of 2012
There's a lot of movie watching and writing I want to do. Soon. But now it's time for family. So let's continue this other holiday season tradition with a look back at my favorite movie posters of the...
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