Monthly Archives: December 2010

An illusion itself as much as it is about a maker of illusions, Sylvain Chomet’s animated take on a never-filmed screenplay by Jacques Tati overflows with rainy-day beauty and mystery. The lack of any true dialogue only adds to its cloak-like myth-making; words would just ruin the poetry. Chomet’s film is also, of course, a beguilingly frustrating piece of work that can seem to hide and obfuscate more than is necessary. But at least the music is fantastic…

The Illusionist is playing now in limited release. You can read the full review at filmcritic.com.

There have, of course, been fashion footage and photography that appear reasonable simulacra of art, and would-be films that are like little more than expensive ad campaigns. Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere floats uneasily between these worlds, neither wholly honest storytelling nor wholly empty spectacle…

Somewhere is playing now in limited release. You can read the full review at PopMatters.

Though there are times when David O. Russell seems to think he’s slumming, he still crafts a satisfyingly potent familial melodrama that transcends the boxing genre…

The Fighter is now playing. You can read the full review at Short Ends & Leader.

Pretty isn’t always a bad thing in films about horrible events, but it can be a distraction, not to mention a cheap way to tidy up situations that are by definition untidy. John Cameron Mitchell’s adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about grieving parents is a near-perfect example of what happens when decorousness gets in the way of raw, ripping emotions…

Rabbit Hole opens today in limited release. You can read the full review at PopMatters.

In the late George Hickenlooper’s last film, Casino Jack, a man flies closer and closer to a corrupting sun because he can’t see how anything he plans is not going to work out, until the glue holding his wings together starts to melt and the ground comes rushing at him faster than he thought possible…

As one of the first writers to understand the paradigm-demolishing impact of the Internet (Cyberia), Douglas Rushkoff has long been lumped in with the web world’s cheerleaders. As this slim, cool-headed broadside makes clear, however, if Rushkoff was ever unambiguously thrilled about the online age, that time is past…

Program or Be Programmed is available throughout the known universe. You can read the full critique at Barnes & Noble Review.

The good people at PopMatters run an annual gift guide called Consuming Consumables, viewable here as an endlessly looping mashup of great films, books, music, and other ephemera sure to bring joy or at least hours of mindless distraction.

My contributions — two DVD sets and one gift book — are here, here, and here.

Now that the end of the year is nearly here, it’s also time for awards season. New York Film Critics Online, which for some reason allows yours truly to claim membership in, announced its annual awards yesterday, and herewith the results — also noted by The Hollywood Reporter:

David Fincher -  The Social Network

James Franco – 127 Hours

Natalie Portman – Black Swan

Christian Bale – The Fighter

Melissa Leo – The Fighter

Matthew Libatique – Black Swan

Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network

Clint Mansell – Black Swan

Noomi Rapace – The Millennium Trilogy (the Swedish-language Girl with the Dragon Tattoo… trilogy)

John Wells – The Company Men

127 Hours

Another Year

Black Swan

Blue Valentine

The Ghost Writer

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The Social Network

All Good Things is inspired by the much-reported case of Robert Durst, whose family was a powerful fiefdom in New York real estate. Though he was suspected of murdering his wife, who disappeared in 1982, he was never indicted for it. Marc Smerling and Marcus Hinchey’s script (which gives all the characters new names and so potentially escapes a threatened lawsuit) builds on Durst’s testimony from another murder trial. Ryan Gosling plays the Durst stand-in, David Marks, and it’s in his heavy-lidded, impenetrable stare and reluctant voice that the film finds its unsteady anchor…

All Good Things is playing now in limited release. You can read the full review at PopMatters.

There’s disappointment seeded into nearly every shot of Tanya Hamilton’s feature debut Night Catches Us. The opening credits are wall-to-wall history, black-and-white photographs of the Black Panthers during the 1960s, upright bodies adorned by black berets and leather coats, marching in formation down cop-lined streets. These are the ghosts of urban America, a flicker of righteous ferocity that still casts a spell today…

Night Catches Us opens today in limited release. You can read the full review at PopMatters.