Movies

Paul Newman (1925-2008)

Remembering a movie star who turned himself into a great actor
Paul Newman, who died last weekend at the age of 83, was that rarest of creatures, a movie star who turned himself into a great actor.

By: STEVE VINEBERG | October 01, 2008

Shaun of the Dead star on losing friends, alienating people, and wanking off to Gillian Anderson
Thirty-eight-year-old British actor Simon Pegg’s US star has been on the rise since his zombie-movie parody Shaun of the Dead shuffled into multiplexes back in 2004.

By: BRETT MICHEL | October 01, 2008

Movies on the Midcoast

From simulated battlegrounds to Bristol Bay at the Camden International Film Festival
Yet again, this year’s festival tackles an admirable hodgepodge of subjects — online gaming junkies, Harry Potter fanatics, and even Cockney gangsters in London’s East End.

By: CHRISTOPHER GRAY | September 24, 2008

Light Reading

The Coen Brothers have talent to Burn
Every now and then so-called independent filmmakers have to make money and prove to the studios that they have some traction at the box office.

By: PETER KEOUGH | September 09, 2008

Autumn peeves

Films with a full agenda
With pundits already reading political significance into summer blockbusters like The Dark Knight (“Is Batman a stand-in for George Bush? Discuss.”), the meatier movies of fall arrive not a moment too soon.

By: PETER KEOUGH | September 11, 2008

Beautiful Losers

Shallow, reverent
Aaron Rose’s Beautiful Losers offers little more than a chance to see nice people talk about their nice-looking art.

By: CHRISTOPHER GRAY | September 03, 2008

The play's the thing

Steve Coogan masters tragic irony in Hamlet 2
Like Tropic Thunder , Hamlet 2 makes its satirical intent known straight away with a flurry of phony, funny commercials.

By: PETER KEOUGH | August 19, 2008

Two days, a theme, and a prop

Overnight developing
If you see a bunch of people running around town this weekend singing and dancing, John Wayne style, you can bet they drew “Musical or Western” as their 48 Hour Film Project genre.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | August 13, 2008

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is stupid-funny
Despite a few soft spots along the way, Thunder combines the dark absurdity of Stiller’s underrated Cable Guy with the unrestrained dumbness of his Zoolander .

By: PETER KEOUGH | August 13, 2008

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Disjointed, sketchy, and saccharine
Like Sex and the City: The Movie, Sanaa Hamri’s continuation of the journey of a pair of jeans that magically fit four girls of disparate genes feels tailored for the small screen.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 05, 2008

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Empire

A flashy, ludicrous threequel
Lines like “I will crush any idea of freedom!” may or may not be intended to reflect current Chinese leadership.

By: CHRIS WANGLER | August 05, 2008

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

You’ll want to believe this movie was never made
X-Files creator Chris Carter resurrects Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, only they’re no longer special, and neither are they agents.

By: BRETT MICHEL | July 30, 2008

Flying high

Is The Dark Knight the best movie ever?
Every summer, it seems like another superhero movie has broken some box-office record or other and made movie history.

By: PETER KEOUGH | July 23, 2008

Darkness falls in the Dark Knight

Scars run deep in Christopher Nolan’s Götterdämmerung
“The night is darkest just before the dawn,” says District Attorney Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight .

By: BRETT MICHEL | July 16, 2008

Our superheroes, ourselves

What the current crop of comic-book action movies tells us about America's identity crisis
Is there a breed of person more tenderly optimistic, more winsomely hopeful for the best, more loyal to the possibility of good, than the American summer moviegoer?

By: JAMES PARKER | July 09, 2008