Coming Soon |
July 27 |
| CHOW DOWN(official) |
| JESSE STONE: NO REMORSE(He will always be remembered as Magnum P.I., but Jesse Stone is his very best work.) |
| DON'T LOOK UP(tainted by an old piece of celluloid containing images of a woman's murder) |
| REPO MEN(ultimately not enough brains) |
| OPERATION: ENDGAME(lump in a hazmat suit) |
| CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010)(so bad in every respect) |
| BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD(official) |
| IP MAN(a style reportedly created by a woman and known more for its close quarters, defensive, and deflective moves) |
| NEIGHBOR(gore, sweet gore) |
| SEX AND THE USA(Sex and the Lives of Low-Self Esteem Surburbanites) |
| DEATH KAPPA(an irradiated water goblin) |
| THE YOUTH OF CHOPIN(Isolated, he committed suicide in a Florida hotel.) |
| RAIN (2008)(official) |
New Releases |
July 20 |
| BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE(he begins silencing his most helpless nemeses) |
| BLACK NARCISSUS(India achieved independence on August 14, 1947) |
| COP OUT(your standard idiotic story about buddy cops) |
| THE LOSERS(a collection of black-ops douchebags) |
| THE PROFESSIONAL (1981)(Stay with the subs.) |
| THE RUNAWAYS(a dystopic L.A. floating between the Manson murders and the Polanski rape case) |
| MOTHER(a criminal love story) |
| NOLLYWOOD BABYLON(third cinema) |
| A TOWN CALLED PANIC(stars a dashing plastic horse and his excitable wards, a plastic cowboy and Indian) |
July 13 |
| TERRIBLY HAPPY(a sad-sack with an impulsive nature and a hero complex) |
| BANDSLAM(new kid) |
| LOVE CHRONICLES: SECRETS REVEALED(Mike Epps) |
| SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS(a little of his soul slips away) |
| CHLOE(young, red-lipped, intelligent) |
| GREENBERG(some people are unworthy of being loved, and incapable of returning love) |
| THE BOUNTY HUNTER(There is a risk of homicide, but not of hurt feelings.) |
July 6 |
| A SINGLE MAN(of lived-in tenderness, comfort, and abiding love) |
| THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO(Ah, let daddy make that rape all better.) |
| BROOKLYN'S FINEST(the Morally Ambiguous Police-Movie All-Stars) |
| LAST CHANCE TO SEE(to seek out an endangered species) |
| STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.(Buster Keaton) |
June 29 |
| BEAUTIFUL(a good yet horrible story) |
| THE CRAZIES (2010)(a better Romero movie than Romero made) |
| EVERLASTING MOMENTS(Maria's discovery leads her to become more and more herself) |
| HOT TUB TIME MACHINE(supplemented with violence, barfing, and hate-fucking, it's still a funny, worthwhile tribute to an era of filmmaking that will not live long in the annals of cinema) |
| PERCY JACKSON and the OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF(unbelievably disrespectful) |
| THE WHITE RIBBON(Something is wrong in the village.) |
| DON MCKAY(a look of dazed consternation throughout) |
| THE ECLIPSE(Official) |
| THE WARLORDS(a clutch of scheming overlords) |
June 22 |
| The Last Station(Helen Mirren may be the only actress who can beg for sex without losing a ferocious pride.) |
| Green Zone(of idealism toyed with and betrayed, of a superb soldier determined to find out the truth about those weapons) |
| The Maid(a blurring of class lines) |
| Close-up(so haunted by the story that he couldn't sleep at night) |
| She's Out of My League(Do you ever get the feeling you're the last American alive who hasn't been to Branson?) |
| Entourage: Season 6(Turtle, who dreams of starting his own business, starts college.) |
| Remember Me(But we don't want to think ourselves as flies, or see fly love stories.) |
| Krik? Krak! Tales of a Nightmare(Duvalier's tyranny extends even to the spiritual realm) |
June 15 |
| Unthinkable(We just need Chloe to upload the schematics to Jack's PDA to complete the set.) |
| Burma VJ(old-fashioned police-state repression can still overpower a rebellion fueled by new media) |
| When in Rome(doesn’t leave you with the feeling that you've witnessed onscreen gynocide) |
| The Book of Eli(It's the freakin' Bible, all right?) |
| Youth in Revolt(sympathetic, affectionate, overfamiliar and not as funny as it ought to be) |
June 8 |
| Shinjuku Incident(old-fashioned) |
| From Paris with Love(mostly bang bang and not kiss kiss) |
| Word is Out(26 different people talking about what they've been through and hope to find) |
| Shutter Island(a bad marriage) |
June 1 |
| Alice in Wonderland (2010)(Alice must find the balls to chart her own path through the patriarchy of her Victorian wood to become a real, bona fide, 1960s-era bra-burner.) |
| Life(respect is earned by Komodo dragons) |
| Tony Manero(he's a combination of a charity-shop Pacino and Iggy Pop's less reputable brother) |
| The Wolfman (2010)(It's so, so bad that it's almost great. It's a hoot.) |
| The Sun(one of the 20th century's most notorious leaders) |
May 25 |
| Dear John(sixty percent of this fucking thing is told in montage) |
| Tell Tale(His appetites are altered.) |
| The Road(when the world comes to an end, the world actually comes to an end) |
| Rain Fall(looking smart in designer threads and looking soulful with his hands in his pockets) |
| True Blood: Season 2(Eggs) |
| Owl and the Sparrow(mellow vibrancy) |
| Leverage: Season 2(Luke Perry Has Game.) |
May 18 |
| The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela(cicadas) |
| Valentine's Day(gridlock) |
| The Kinks: You Really Got Me(parallel 5ths and octaves) |
| Pleasures of the Flesh(everyone is compromised and corrupted by a capitalist economy) |
| The Messenger(deeply regrets informing you) |
| Extraordinary Measures(what's missing is the sense of madness and loneliness) |
| The Spy Next Door(still giving 100 percent, even if that's often way too much) |
| The New Daughter(largely bloodless and totally boobless) |
| Invictus(a relaxed, sober look at one facet of the group mind) |
| The Girl on the Train(the private and public construction of French identity) |
May 11 |
| Legion(everyone is killing time) |
| Edge of Darkness(It's about where you are and where you've been versus where you were supposed to be.) |
| Daybreakers(industry standard) |
| North Face(They don't give a damn about Hitler.) |
May 4 |
| Paper Covers Rock(fearing the experience will compromise her preference for indifference) |
| Nine(alarmingly unsensual in spite of all the flesh on display) |
| Tooth Fairy(Insufficiently Advanced Magic) |
| College Boys Live(official) |
| Tetro(a gorgeous, crystalline bauble that really catches the light) |
| Leap Year(It's not worth defending and, as such, not worth attacking.) |
| Greek Pete: A Year in the Life of a Rent Boy(shockingly honest in their depiction of their sex) |
| Tokyo Sonata(about giving oneself over to chaos, holding hand over heart and stepping out into the abyss) |
April 27 |
| Disgrace(It isn't so much about what happens, as about the way things are.) |
| Somewhere in Time(love so strong, it can overcome the obstacle of Time itself) |
| District 13: Ultimatum(can you plant watermelon seeds that grow heroin inside of them?) |
| It's Complicated(Because the point isn't what Meryl gets: it's what you the viewer don't get, you the poor sap of an undesirable woman with nothing to live for but fantasy. You're not gonna get either Steve or Alex. Or that kitchen.) |
| Georgia O'Keeffe(official) |
| The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus(isn't actually a complete and utter disaster, only a partial one) |
| Five Minutes of Heaven(tries way too hard to create tension) |
April 22 |
| Avatar(demonstrates that the United States remains incapable of dealing directly with race in its mainstream, prestige entertainments in any way save for the obvious, pandering, sometimes condescending, sometimes just bigoted, always ignorant, and, it almost goes without saying, tediously offensive) |
April 20 |
| The Young Victoria(As a film it is very pretty and poised.) |
| The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela(official) |
| Peacock(If he only knew what she was doing.) |
| Mammoth(Money has a way of dictating our decisions.) |
| The Lovely Bones(It really sucks.) |
| Uncertainty(green for Brooklyn, yellow for Manhattan) |
| The Horse Boy(With any documentary, there is another story that goes unreported: the story of the making of the film.) |
April 13 |
| Tenderness(caught in the muddy water between blockbusting glory and arthouse rewards) |
| Defendor(Modest but likable effort is packaged in a straightforward style.) |
| Pirate Radio(Radio Caroline) |
| Daisy Chain(creeps) |
April 6 |
| Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans(isn’t tortured, but fun) |
| Eyes on the Prize(it is the principal film account of the most important American social justice movement of the 20th century) |
| Yesterday was a Lie(time and memory) |
| Modern Love (2006)(the kind of place you can check out of but never really leave) |
| Black Crescent Moon(official) |
| Plunder: The Crime of Our Time(a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it) |
| The Collector (2009)(So this definitely isn't for the squeamish.) |
| La France(shadows, phantoms, twinkling stars and discordant harmonies) |
March 30 |
| An Education(our yearning) |
| Sherlock Holmes (2009)(that Holmes is a sexy motherfucker) |
| The Baader Meinhof Complex(sex and violence, bullets and politics) |
| Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel(Militantly inoffensive and cheerfully bland, the film aspires to be nothing more than a passable babysitter, and it more or less succeeds.) |
| I Sell the Dead(buddy body-snatching) |
March 23 |
| The Prisoner(official) |
| The African Queen(Charlie and Rose watch crocodiles frolick on the nearby river bank) |
| Yesterday was a Lie(time and memory) |
| Red Cliff (International Cut)(This refers to the complete five-hour version, not the one sanitized for round-eye consumption.) |
| The Fantastic Mr. Fox(deeply human) |
| The Men Who Stare at Goats(the New Earth Army, a super-secret Army team of paranormals) |
| Mad Men: Season 3(Superfans) |
| Son of Man(the disciples are introduced in captioned freezeframe a la Reservoir Dogs) |
| The Blind Side(If this movie doesn't piss you off, if it doesn't make you nauseated with its dangerous smugness, you're part of the problem.) |
| Taxidermia(he is literally on fire, masturbating with the aid of a candle and ejaculating a stream of flame) |
March 16 |
| Breaking Bad: Season 2(the process of Walt becoming an entirely different person) |
| Armored(where everything is what it seems) |
| High Life(black sentimentality and unconventional finesse) |
| Astro Boy(cowlick) |
| Broken Embraces(a brokenhearted romanticism familiar to all the people who have woken up in a present they never would have wished for in the past) |
| Wonderful World(It has sexual situations and drug taking.) |
| The Princess and the Frog(it still ends with a message of no-happiness-without-marriage straight outta the 16th century) |
| Ninja Assassin(Come on, ninjas, what the fuck? You should be proud of your ninja tools and use them all constantly.) |
| The Fourth Kind(meshes fake real footage with faker fake footage) |
| Did You Hear About the Morgans?(Generally unfavorable reviews) |
| Monk: Season 8(Its eighth and final season concluded on December 4, 2009.) |
March 9 |
| Precious(forget about education and instead apply for welfare) |
| Up in the Air(Universal acclaim) |
| Possession (2009)(official) |
| The Boondock Saints II: Boondock Boogaloo(The only thing that bothers them, and they're super sensitive about this, is the slightest suggestion that they're gay.) |
| The Heart is a Drum Machine(knowledgeable and weathered musicologists gave their time) |
| Capitalism: A Love Story(Dead Peasant) |
| Planet 51(it's all just shallow, unimaginatively borrowed iconography) |
March 2 |
| 2012(all you need to know is that something is happening and it's gonna fuck up your shit) |
| Where the Wild Things Are(It's as elemental as children: capricious, furious one moment, loving, soft the next.) |
| Ponyo(magic haunts the edges of the everyday, mixing with the ordinary) |
| Tell Them Anything You Want(official) |
| Gentlemen Broncos(spastic) |
| Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story(official) |
February 23 |
| Flame and Citron(where nobody is at all pure) |
| $9.99(enchanting stop-motion animated fable) |
| The Box(waiting for a cult to find it) |
| Examined Life(Why, indeed?) |
| Dead Snow(The movie is pretty funny.) |
| The Vicious Kind(uncomfortably vicious) |
| Eleven Minutes(a warts-and-all chronicle) |
| The Informant!(true-crime) |
| Three Blind Mice(what happened back on the boat) |
| Breakfast with Scot(sharp) |
| Nurse Jackie: Season One(St. Augustine) |
| Everybody's Fine (2009)(you can feel its rusty machinery cranking away) |
| The September Issue(Generally favorable reviews) |
| The Damned United(a story too outrageous to be made up) |
| Superjail!: Season One(Superjail is built inside a volcano which is itself located in a larger volcano.) |
| Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths(Carlos Alazraqui as Breakdance) |
| Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day(official) |
February 16 |
| Black Dynamite(BLACK DYNAMITE is required viewing, preferably with audience.) |
| Shaun the Sheep: A Woolly Good Time(a shotgun marriage of slapstick and silent comedy) |
| Revanche(a moral tale about conscience, responsibility and regret) |
| Coco Before Chanel(She isn't a brazen temptress but a capitalist, who collects on her investment.) |
| Good Hair(the universality of narcissism) |
| Law Abiding Citizen(terrorize the whole of Philadelphia) |
| Hunger(Her Majesty's Prison Maze in Northern Ireland, circa 1981.) |
February 9 |
| A Serious Man(every blessing as a potential curse) |
| I Hate Valentine's Day(Overwhelming dislike) |
| 36(torn between rigid morality and grasping ambition) |
| Bronson(It is 92 minutes of rage, acted by Tom Hardy. This is a versatile actor.) |
| The Stepfather(doomed to generic slasher villainy) |
| Serious Moonlight(creepy) |
| The Song of Sparrows(the world is a dream and a lie) |
| Lo(official) |
| The Time Traveler's Wife(he flashes some discreet cheek) |
| Couples Retreat(is just another hyper-conservative dick flick) |
February 2 |
| Ong Bak 2: The Beginning(abducted by slave traders and tossed into a pit with a crocodile) |
| New York, I Love You(Gotham travelogue) |
| Wanda Sykes: I'ma be Me(Wanda Sykes) |
| The House of the Devil(the feathered hairstyles, the spiral phone cords) |
| Amelia(She was the real thing.) |
| Zombieland(a comedy that's not funny and a zombie movie that's not scary) |
| Universal Soldier: Regeneration(This is a masterpiece of DTV.) |
| Cold Souls(Insert an ice pick just so, and your worries are over.) |
| Love Happens(deliciously bland comfort food) |