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Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

Bleating hearts tame Goats
Here’s a subject that really could have used a Stanley Kubrick or a John Frankenheimer or a Robert Altman. But are there any great cinematic satirists left, auteurs with the knack for black comedy and cold-blooded irony?

By PETER KEOUGH | November 06, 2009

Review: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

John Krasinski takes on David Foster Wallace and succeeds
Bleeding admiration for the David Foster Wallace stories on which it’s based, John Krasinski’s directorial debut follows Sara Quinn (Julianne Nicholson) as she interviews men about their sexual proclivities for her master’s thesis.

By JASON O'BRYAN | November 05, 2009

Review: Michael Jackson's This Is It

Is this it?
The Star Wars –style titles that begin Kenny Ortega’s hastily assembled Michael Jackson tribute documentary explain that the film has been whittled down from 100 hours of behind-the-scenes video shot between last April and June during rehearsals for the King of Pop’s planned 50-date “This Is It” London concert series.

By BRETT MICHEL | November 04, 2009

Review: Disney's A Christmas Carol

State-of-the-art technology allows actors to reach new heights of hamminess
Charles Dickens made a mint with readings of A Christmas Carol , but a century and a half of technological progress has not been kind to the property.

By PETER KEOUGH | November 03, 2009

Review: The Horse Boy

A compelling real-life adventure
Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff seem the best of parents and yet they’re worn down by their four-year-old autistic son, Rowan, with his four-hour tantrums, his rejection of toilet training, his inability to answer to his name.

By GERALD PEARY | November 04, 2009

Review: Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America

Imagine if Ingmar Bergman had made The Blair Witch Project
Tony Stone’s “love letter to the Vikings’ discovery of the New World, pagan iconography, brute manliness, and simpler times” is set in the simpler (?) time of 1007 AD.

By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 04, 2009

Review: The Fourth Kind

Creepy, but clumsy
If the “actual footage” used in this film is real, then there’s something going on up in Alaska even more frightening than the rise of Sarah Palin.

By DAVID WILDMAN | November 04, 2009

Review: Bad Boy Made Good

The revival of George Anthiel's 1924 Ballet méchanique
If Igor Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps paved the way for modern rock, then George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique made possible every genre of contemporary music with “noise” or “metal” in its name.

By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 03, 2009

Review: Gentlemen Broncos

Jared Hess's latest geek fantasy
Having peaked with his debut, Napoleon Dynamite , Jared Hess has settled into being a family-friendly John Waters — which is redundant, since Waters is already rated PG-13.

By PETER KEOUGH | November 04, 2009

Review: Warren Miller's Dynasty

Nothing but fluff for the franchise
How many death-defying stunts can one behold before they become repetitious? Quite a few, it would seem.

By TOM MEEK | November 04, 2009

Review: 35 Shots of Rum

Claire Denis's film goes down smooth, but with a subtle kick
Most American filmmakers would focus on the multicultural aspect of 35 Shots of Rum — Claire Denis takes it for granted that her characters are immigrants and doesn’t turn her film into a political discussion.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 28, 2009

Review: The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

This is bullshit.
You’d think Troy Duffy would have learned something in the decade since he blew his golden ticket with The Boondock Saints .

By BRETT MICHEL | November 02, 2009

Review: American Casino

Putting a face on figures
If you’re still curious about what derivatives are after seeing Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story , Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s drier, more in-depth examination of the meltdown and bailout might help.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 30, 2009

Review: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Harry Potter it ain’t, but it’s fun all the same.
You’ve seen it all before: a boy with a special destiny tangles with the occult and gets sucked out of his normal life and into the twilight realm of the supernatural, in the process setting the stage for paranormal war between good and evil.

By SHAULA CLARK | October 28, 2009

Review: The Canyon

The scenery looks nice at least
The Canyon attests to how a first-rate character actor can elevate a poor film to the ranks of the mediocre.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 30, 2009

Review: Saw VI

Surprisingly timely
Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), the self-righteous serial killer of the long-toothed franchise, may have succumbed to cancer a few films back, but he remains very much alive in plot and presence.

By TOM MEEK | October 30, 2009

Review: Eli and Ben

A different sort of opener for this year's Boston Jewish Film Festival
Unlike most opening-night crowd pleasers, Ori Ravid’s thoughtful coming-of-age tale starts off the Boston Jewish Film Festival with some ambiguity and edge.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 28, 2009

Review: Antichrist

Lars von Trier’s screams from a marriage
Lars von Trier’s controversial freak-out is Saw VI as told by Carl Dreyer. Is that a good thing? It certainly has grabbed everybody’s attention. I’m torn between dismissing the film as gross-out juvenilia and regarding it as raw religious mythmaking.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 21, 2009

Review: Amelia

Plane bad
The hallowed formula for an Oscar Best Picture nomination — legendary figure, pat rise and fall scenario, overproduced visuals and music, a showboating performance from a name actor, reassuring platitudes — falls flat in what is Mira Nair’s worst picture.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 29, 2009