All Authors >

PETER KEOUGH

Latest Articles

Lee Chang-dong's oblique, affecting film

Poetic justice
Mija (Yun Jung-hee) is 60ish but still a looker, a quality she's aware of. She dresses elegantly even when she's going about her chores as a cleaning woman — which include bathing Mr. Kang (Kim Hi-ra), the elderly, paralyzed patriarch of the family who've hired her.

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 03, 2011

Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Blunt and Damon try to rise above ponderous mystifications
Matt Damon doesn't shy from roles that address the questions that can really bother a guy - like identity (the Bourne movies), death (Hereafter), and now the meaning of it all.

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2011

Review: Beastly

Soppy farce is neither beautiful nor bestial
The best part of this benighted version of Beauty and the Beast is the filigreed network of slashes, tattoos, and metalwork that class witch Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen as Gary Oldman in Dracula) inflicts on high-school pretty boy Kyle (Alex Pettyfer).

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2011

Review: Kaboom

Less a boom than a whimper
In the late '80s and early '90s, the subversive "New Queer Cinema," with such filmmakers as Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and Greg Araki, promised a vital gay sensibility in independent film. Since then, Haynes and Van Sant have been absorbed by the mainstream, and gay cinema has deteriorated into inane, lurid rom-coms.

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2011

Review: Drive Angry

Like a not-so-funny episode from Grindhouse' cutting room floor
If The Adjustment Bureau confused you about the grand plan of the man upstairs, don't expect John Milton (Nicolas Cage) in Patrick Lussier's 3D revenge flick to explain the ways of God to man.

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 02, 2011

Review: Take Me Home Tonight

Standard buddy comedy turned zany bacchanal has moments of inspiration
Standard buddy comedy turned zany bacchanal has moments of inspiration

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 04, 2011

Tom Hooper's film looks like an Oscar winner

Speech impediments?
Given the change in political attitudes after the election of Barack Obama, a reactionary backlash following last year's progressive Oscars - in which Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win Best Director - might be no surprise. But who knew the Academy would get this fuddy-duddy?

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 25, 2011

Review: Unknown

An far-fetched probing of the nature of identity, memory, and guilt
The unknown doesn't pose as much of a problem in this engaging thriller from Jaume Collet-Serra as does implausibility.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 23, 2011

Review: Hall Pass

A tepid hornball farce you might wanna pass on
Domesticity might be comfortable, but it hasn't done much for the comedy of Peter and Bobby Farrelly.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 23, 2011

Review: I Am Number Four

Teen aliens and big battles make for a flashy, if predictable, adolescent fantasy
You might feel you've watched the premieres of half a dozen TV series after seeing D.J. Caruso's flashy adolescent fantasy. Or maybe as many recent films. But despite its lack of originality, I Am Number Four does offer a few rewarding moments.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 15, 2011

Review: Cedar Rapids

Conventional wisdom
In his fourth film, aspiring maverick director Miguel Arteta ( Chuck & Buck ; Youth in Revolt ) follows Capra deeper into the cornfield with this slyly complex and broadly comic farce about innocence, corruption, and the gray areas between.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 16, 2011

Sara Nesson gets an Oscar nod for 'Poster Girl'

Casualty of war
In the Bible, they beat swords into plowshares. On Martha's Vineyard on July 21, 2008, about two dozen Iraq War vets recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder shredded their old uniforms into paper and turned them into works of art. Sara Nesson, a filmmaker with local roots (she's the stepdaughter of tire magnate Barry Steinberg), had helped organize the event, which was called the Combat Papers Project.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 18, 2011

Review: Sanctum

Poorly scripted adventure is more rectum than Sanctum
As the helicopter cleared the jungle canopy for the first awe-inspiring, 3D look at the stony maw of the Esa-ala cave system in New Guinea, I thought: sanctum? It's more like a rectum.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 09, 2011

Review: Gnomeo & Juliet

Inevitable movie allusions and a hideous flamingo don't do this animated flop any favors
Following the blighted example of Gulliver, Kelly Asbury's vapid adaptation takes a great classic and makes it stupid for the kids.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 09, 2011

Review: The Strange Case of Angélica

Death becomes her
Now 102 years old and still turning out movies at the rate of one a year, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira seems destined to live forever. So perhaps it's appropriate that his newest film observes, with Olympian detachment, the tragi-comedy of mortals in pursuit of eternal love.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 09, 2011