All Authors >

BRETT MICHEL

Latest Articles

Review: The Stepfather

Remake fails to get any blood flowing
If you call a film The Stepfather , then your title character should have the decency to marry into that perfect little family that he’s predisposed to butcher and kill.

By: BRETT MICHEL | October 21, 2009

Review: An Education

Carey Mulligan graduates with honors
Let’s get this right out of the way: Carey Mulligan is the real thing.

By: BRETT MICHEL | October 15, 2009

Interview: Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson

Picking the brains of Zombieland 's stars
Vampires may have taken a bite out of the popular zeitgeist in the past couple of years, but the nearly $25 million in ticket sales that greeted the opening of Zombieland, as it shuffled into theaters this past weekend, just goes to prove that while flesh-eating ghouls might be (un)dead, you should never count them out.

By: BRETT MICHEL | October 07, 2009

Review: Fame

A PG-rated, post- High School Musical remake: why, exactly?
Oh, MGM: I realize you're staving off bankruptcy, but is remaking past hits the answer?

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 30, 2009

Review: Five Minutes of Heaven

Or, rather, 90 minutes of tension
It's easy to see what attracted Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt ( Bloody Sunday ) to Prime Suspect veteran Guy Hibbert's screenplay: it's an actor's showcase.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 23, 2009

Review: Love Happens

Melodrama also happens
Half an hour into the screening of this tearjerker from Brandon Camp, three women exited. They made the right choice.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 23, 2009

Review: Still Walking

Delightful
By now, it's a bit of a cliché to compare the work of Hirokazu Koreeda to the masterful films of Yasujiro Ozu — something of which I've certainly been guilty.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 16, 2009

Review: 9

Shane Acker expands his short
"Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7-8-9!" Although the logic of this riddle may puzzle adults, the word- (or number-) play slays 'em in the schoolyard.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 09, 2009

Review: Betty Blue, The Director's Cut

Well-remembered arthouse film gains an extra hour
"I had known Betty for a week," a voiceover intones. The voice is that of Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade), an unpublished novelist, whom we see fucking Betty (Béatrice Dalle in a star-making turn) in the slow zoom that serves as the opening shot of Jean-Jacques Beineix's well-remembered contribution to erotic cinema.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 09, 2009

Review: All About Steve

They should have called it "There's Something Insane About Mary"
How is it that the absolute worst "chick flicks" of the summer were written by women?

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 09, 2009

Review: Halloween II

Rob Zombie's newest bloody mess
Rob Zombie's remake of a sequel to a film he remade begins where his previous film left off.

By: BRETT MICHEL | September 02, 2009

First look at James Cameron's Avatar

Titanic Gamble
James Cameron captained the biggest box-office smash of all time, his Titanic having grossed nearly $2 billion worldwide. But that was 12 years ago, long before the recession appeared on anyone's radar.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 26, 2009

Review: Lorna's Silence

A work of near-greatness
Are there many better young actors currently working in film than Jérémie Renier?

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 13, 2009

Bottle rocket

Charlyne Yi is a hot date
Who exactly is Charlyne Yi? Two years ago, she appeared — seemingly from out of nowhere — in a brief but memorable turn in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up. A closer look at Apatow's new Funny People , however, might provide a clue as to where he discovered her.

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 07, 2009

Love, truth and videotape

Paper Heart wears its heart on its sleeve
Is there anything more heartwarming than watching a little girl officiating at the marriage of two of her favorite dolls? Is there a purer form of love than the kind that a pre-pubescent might project onto the union of a plush Miss Piggy and a put-upon Kermit the Frog?

By: BRETT MICHEL | August 10, 2009