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Review: Tyrannosaur

Paddy Considine's directorial debut
In his directorial debut, actor Paddy Considine has learned that the best way to develop sympathy for someone who kicks his dog to death is by comparing him to another character (Eddie Marsan) who urinates on his wife.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 22, 2012

Review: Battle Royale (2000)

A not-so-distant future society
In a not-so-distant future society that has devolved into chaos, Japan's youth run amok, Clockwork Orange –style, and the government has passed an act decreeing that one unruly grade-school class will face off in a battle from which only one will emerge. Sound familiar?

By: ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | February 21, 2012

Review: Bullhead

Michael R. Roskam's debut feature
What this cattle farmer at the center of talented writer/director Michael R. Roskam's debut feature – Belgium's foreign-language Oscar nominee – lacks, he tries to make up for with steroids.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 22, 2012

Review: Addiction Incorporated

Charles Evans Jr.'s muckraking documentary
Much of the first half of Charles Evans Jr.'s muckraking documentary is annoyingly gimmicky, relying on unneeded graphics, animation, and imitation-Errol-Morris effects to tell the tale of a Philip Morris scientist, Victor DeNoble, who became a key government witness against his old employer.

By: GERALD PEARY | February 21, 2012

Review: Ghost Rider 3D: Spirit of Vengeance

Movie hell
The filmmakers deliver some gorgeous landscape shots of Asia Minor and leverage the 3D perspective to good effect, but the time between such moments of relief can seem like an eternity of movie hell.

By: Tom Meek | February 21, 2012

Review: Coriolanus

Filming the Bard
In a line of fascist-style stagings of the Bard from Orson Welles's 1937 black-shirted Julius Caesar to Richard Loncraine's brown-shirted Richard III (1998), Ralph Fiennes sets his lean and hungry take on Shakespeare's tragedy in a mo dern-day war zone, paring the play to a brisk two hours.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 16, 2012

Review: Declaration of War

A puzzler of a cancer drama
A baby with a brain tumor is no laughing matter.

By: ALICIA POTTER | February 16, 2012

Review: This Means War

Spy vs. Spy territory
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 16, 2012

Review: Safe House

Daniel Espinosa's spy thriller
Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 15, 2012

Review: Rampart

Oren Moverman's portrait of a rotten cop
The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 15, 2012

Review: The Secret World of Arrietty

The best children's movie in a long time
The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 15, 2012

Review: The Vow

Notebook knock-off
Michael Sucsy's The Vow's tag line, "based on a true story," is the only sincere moment in a film that will bring you to tears — of boredom.

By: MONICA CASTILLO | February 15, 2012

Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Documentary

Powerful images
The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 10, 2012

Review: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Brad Peyton's sequel
I liked the tiny elephants and the Rock bouncing berries off his pecs, but Brad Peyton's sequel is as bad as the 2008 original.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 07, 2012

Review: W.E.

Madonna's directorial debut
Nobody does vulgarity like Madonna, especially when she's being tasteful, as in her directorial debut of this grotesque biopic.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 07, 2012

Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Animated

Standouts
One film stands out among the Animated Shorts, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby's Wild Life .

By: GERALD PEARY | February 08, 2012

Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Live Action

The Oscar nominees for Live Action Shorts come down to five conventional narratives.
The Oscar nominees for Live Action Shorts come down to five conventional narratives.

By: GERALD PEARY | February 07, 2012

Review: Chronicle

Superpowered teens
Poor Andrew (Dane DeHaan) has more problems than any movie teenager deserves.

By: PETER KEOUGH | February 02, 2012

Review: The Woman in Black

James Watkins's old-fashioned ghost story
After 10 years battling supernatural creatures, you'd think Harry Potter would be better equipped to deal with the paranormal pests he faces in James Watkins's old-fashioned ghost story.

By: ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | February 02, 2012

Review: Charlotte Rampling: The Look

Angelina Maccarone's portrait of the actress
Rampling's physical gifts, unimpeded by plastic surgery in their march through time, are matched by a keen mind and an unapologetic approach to life and work.

By: BETSY SHERMAN | January 31, 2012

Review: Big Miracle

Ken Kwapis's take on a true story from 1988
Taking a tip from the oil industry, Hollywood has started exploiting Alaska. Following in the tracks of The Grey is Ken Kwapis's take on a true story from 1988 about an effort to save gray whales trapped in the Arctic ice. Surprisingly, the film offers genuine complexity.

By: PETER KEOUGH | January 31, 2012

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