Monthly Archives: July 2011

July 31, 2011 · 6:38 pm
New in Theaters:
El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

Rumors and hyperbole always swirled around El Bulli, the fabled restaurant near Barcelona, as thickly and incessantly as foodies buzzed around its culinary ring-leader, Ferran Adria. Stories about Adria’s fantastical offerings were traded among the culinary jet-set and the kind of gastronomic adventurers who photograph what they’re eating for their blogs, with rapt and lavish descriptions of things like trout egg tempura, tagliatelli of shaved foie gras, something called popcorn clouds, and all that liquid nitrogen. His team of chefs were lauded for their experimental approach to food, which deconstructed ingredients and then remixed them into fantastic new creations, much a DJ might whip up a thrilling new composition out of old clips and samples…

The documentary El Bulli: Cooking in Progress is playing now in limited release — seeing it is the closest you’re likely to get to experiencing Adria’s cooking. You can read the full review at filmcritic.com. 

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July 29, 2011 · 6:46 am
New in Theaters:
Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens is one of those films where the hero can’t help but stride into each shot in poster-ready iconic fashion – Black Swan and Iron Man cinematographer Matthew Libatique does a smart job of framing Daniel Craig against the sun-burnt desert, those ice-blue eyes blazing – but lesser characters like Sam Rockwell’s nebbishy bartender get squinched into the corner. It’s also the kind of film where the town preacher (Clancy Brown) is a tough, whiskey-drinking sort who dispenses hard-bitten theological bon mots during target practice…
Cowboys and Aliens is now playing everywhere in the known universe. You can read my full review at PopMatters.

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· 6:38 am
New in Theaters:
The Guard

Taking a page from the darker verges of his In Bruges performance (already a pretty black piece of work, there), Brendan Gleeson stalks onto the screen in The Guard like his character couldn’t decide whether to get up for work that morning or shoot himself in the head. Not because he’s depressed, but maybe just to see what it was like. For today, Sgt. Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) is on the scene, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?… 

The Guard is playing now in limited release; check it out. You can read my full review at filmcritic.com.

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July 21, 2011 · 10:36 pm
New in Theaters:
Captain America: The First Avenger

As muscular, stiff, shiny, and dull as its star, Joe Johnston’s high-gloss take on the last building block of Marvel’s 2012 tentpole Avengers film is in the end little more than a dutiful origin story for a superhero who has frankly long been something of a back-bencher. Unlike some comic-book franchises, however (did Spawn, for instance, ever have a chance of being anything but terrible?), this one had promise. It’s the story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a sickly shrimp of a kid from Brooklyn who’s repeatedly declared unfit for military service at the start of World War II. By dint of his scrappiness and plucky good-heartedness, Rogers is accepted into a top-secret program where he’s injected with a serum that turns him into a buffed figure of herculean might. Watch out, Nazis!…
Captain America: The First Avenger is playing most everywhere. You can read my full review at filmcritic.com.

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July 15, 2011 · 4:17 pm
New in Theaters:
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop

What Conan O’Brien can’t stop doing is punching people. He lunges at them, pummeling their shoulders. Sometimes they hit back, but not as hard. Because, hey, he’s the boss, and he needs to unwind. This habit is one of several exposed in Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. Rodman Flender’s keen-eyed documentary begins just after the battle over The Tonight Show, which involved O’Brien, Jay Leno, and the NBC brass in late 2009 and early 2010. When the dust settled, O’Brien walked away many millions of dollars richer while Leno had the show. As part of his severance, O’Brien could not appear on television for six months. 

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is in theaters now. You can read the full review at PopMatters.

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July 13, 2011 · 6:46 am
New in Books:
A Dance with Dragons

There are times when you just don’t even want to hear about another book. Each year is much like the last, with the number of should-read and can’t-wait-to-read titles piling up in your mind and on the shelf and under the desk and spilling out of your bag and into the hallway. But word had come from a friend about an author named Naomi Novik. She’d written a novel that he said was just superb historical fiction, with expertly realized descriptions of the arcana of Napoleonic War-era naval combat that landed right in the middle of the Venn diagram of our intersecting interests. Even better, he said, there are dragons, and they talk. I was hooked before even cracking the spine…

George R. R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons went on sale yesterday. You can read my complete article (about Martin and other lengthy series) at the Barnes and Noble Review.

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July 8, 2011 · 6:45 am
New in Theaters:
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Repeat a distorted version of the truth often enough, and it becomes accepted fact, regardless of the realities on the ground. This verity has rarely been more vividly evoked than in Chad Freidrichs’s moving and revelatory documentary about the legacy of St. Louis’s infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex. As Freidrichs shows, the lessons supposedly learned from this ignominious episode weren’t entirely wrong but they certainly weren’t all correct, either. As usual, it was the poor and powerless who received the blame, while the powers that be escaping censure and pointing fingers back at those whom they were to have been helping…
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is playing now in limited release. You can read my full review at filmcritic.com.

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July 1, 2011 · 10:12 am
New in Theaters:
If a Tree Falls

If you were looking for the least usual suspect to be hauled in as part of a terrorism case, then Daniel McGowan would be a good fit. An average-looking kid from Queens, the son of a cop, who worked in public-relations and environmental cause offices, McGowan was arrested in 2005 for being part of the Earth Liberation Front. A radical environmental activist group, ELF had been labeled domestic terrorists by the government and more vividly branded “eco-terrorists” by the media.  Co-directors Marshall Curry (Street Fight) and Sam Cullman come to this fascinating story via a personal route – Curry’s wife was McGowan’s employer when he was arrested – but handle it all in an impressively judicious manner…
If a Tree Falls is playing now in limited release and is well worth checking out. You can read my full review at filmcritic.com.

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