Screens:
Mira Nair’s new film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, arrives at a time when its story is likely to be of interest to a much larger audience, now...
By Callie Enlow
5/8/2013
Screens:
As a fan of director Terrence Malick’s work, it might seem odd to criticize his latest film for its lack of specificity. After all, anyone versed in Malick’s...
By Jeff Meyers
5/1/2013
Screens:
Review of HBO doc 'Which Way is the Frontline From Here?'
By Dean Robbins
4/17/2013
Screens:
A connoisseur of female desperation, Cristian Mungiu won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2007 for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the story of a young woman who struggles...
By Steven G. Kellman
4/17/2013
Screens & Tech:
When I was a kid, I used to take my mom’s compact mirror and walk around the house staring down into it, pretending I was actually walking on the...
By Jeremy Martin
4/3/2013
Screens & Tech:
How Evil Dead, the “reinvention” (as Uruguayan first-time director Fede Álvarez likes to call it) of Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic The Evil...
By Enrique Lopetegui
4/4/2013
Screens:
For Chileans and those active in the Latin American left, September 11 took place not in New York in 2001, but in Santiago in 1973.
By Enrique Lopetegui
4/10/2013
Screens & Tech:
How you receive Amy Berg's (Deliver Us from Evil) documentary depends a lot on what you already know. Those who have never heard of the West Memphis 3...
By Jeff Meyers
3/20/2013
- 'Stoker' is all drips and no substance
No matter what the Hollywood vehicle, Mia Wasikowska always makes for good company during the ride. In Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's moody American debut...
| 3/20/2013
- ‘Chasing Ice’ presents visually stunning proof of climate change
Climate change skepticism stubbornly persists in certain quarters, despite mountains of rapidly growing scientific data, largely because...
| 3/1/2013
- Michael Haneke's 'Amour' holds a mirror to Death's harrowing face
In Michael Haneke's Amour, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are an affectionate elderly French couple enjoying their twilight years in comfort.
| 2/13/2013
- Roman Polanski doc a winner at Jewish Film Fest
On September 26, 2009, Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski took a plane to Switzerland, where he was going to receive an award...
| 2/6/2013
- 'Pretty Vacant': the Sex Pistols and Esteban Jordan meet in a SA film classic.
It's hard to hold a DVD of Pretty Vacant, the short film by Jim Mendiola — it burns your hands.
| 1/30/2013
- 'The Invisible War': will a win at the Oscars change anything for raped women in the military?
Of this year's Oscar-nominated films, none is more relevant to Military City, USA than Kirby Dick's The Invisible War. With rigor and...
| 1/30/2013
- Texans bound for Sundance Film Festival
This is finally Texas' year at Sundance Film Festival. On January 17-27, filmmakers from across the country will come together in Park City, Utah...
| 1/16/2013
- 'Zero Dark Thirty': A moody examination on the greatest manhunt in history
For over a decade, the war on terror has been relentlessly waged at any cost in lives, time, or resources, though as posited by director Kathryn Bigelow’s...
| 1/9/2013
- 'Reportero': News reporting and death in Mexico
Reportero, the first full-length feature by award-winning documentary filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz, pries a vantage point into the chaotic and sometimes...
| 1/2/2013
- 'Django Unchained': Slavery, Tarantino style
In Django Unchained, bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) readily expresses his disgust for slavery. But after killing...
| 12/19/2012
- 'The Hobbit', a less unexpected journey than you might think
If there's one word that describes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey it's "more." More action. More digital effects. More characters.
| 12/12/2012
- Hitchcock is less about birds, more about the man — and the woman behind him
Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock, based on the lauded 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, might've been somewhat better served if, while plumbing its...
| 12/5/2012
- Joe Wright attempts to slap a new facade on an old 'Anna Karenina' barn
Does Tolstoy really matter anymore? Directors regularly attempt to plunder the great master's musty catalog, among which the sweaty, love-drenched Anna...
| 11/28/2012
- Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' celebrates the glorious mess that is democracy
Don't let the battle scenes in the trailers fool you: Lincoln is less about rifles and cannons and more about dandified lawyers and crotchety politicians in...
| 11/20/2012
- Veliz family's immigration fight revisited with 'Cartoneo y nopalitos'
January 21, 2009, was an ordinary afternoon like any other for 23-year-old Benita Véliz. But after picking up lunch in Helotes, Véliz was pulled over by a police officer...
| 11/14/2012
- Diana Vreeland, her life and enduring impact on the fashion world
"Why don't you rinse your blond child's hair in dead champagne to keep its gold, as they do in France?" "Why don't you go serenely out in the...
| 11/7/2012
- Director Ben Affleck delivers neatly packaged spy thriller 'Argo'
Imagine what screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd must've been thinking when former CIA officer Tony Mendez released his book Master of Disguise in 1999.
| 10/17/2012
- 'V/H/S', the scariest film only a few have seen
V/H/S opened on October 5 in only 16 theaters nationwide, earning a pale $36,402 so far. As of this writing, there’s no information on whether the movie will...
| 10/17/2012
- 'Blood Cousins' is entertaining, but needs a serious exorcism
It's not very difficult to see the impressive little independent comedy trying to fight its way out of the awkward mishmash of genres in the...
| 10/24/2012
- The original (and best) 'Halloween' returns
Thirty-four years after its release, John Carpenter's original Halloween remains the best in the Michael Myers series. By today's standards...
| 10/24/2012
- 'Searching for Sugar Man' tells inspirational story of disregarded musician
Prophet. Inner-city poet. More popular than Elvis Presley. The numerous ways mysterious Mexican-American folk singer Sixto Rodriguez...
| 10/10/2012
- 'Pitch Perfect' soundtrack outshines the film
A mix between the cheerleading comedy Bring it On and the TV series Glee, Tony Award-nominated director Jason Moore’s debut film Pitch Perfect will cater mostly to...
| 10/3/2012
- 'Chicken with Plums' a story of a fiddler and his truth
To understand why Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, who brought Iranian émigrée Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis to the screen in 2007...
| 10/3/2012
- 'The Queen of Versailles': How David Siegel ruined the world and then got screwed himself
Lauren Greenfield won two documentary directorial awards at Sundance this year for her fascinating portrayal of David and Jaqueline Siegel, billionaires building the biggest...
| 10/3/2012
- 'The Master': P.T. Anderson's prowess once again confirmed
Pornography as a cultural influence in Boogie Nights; the squeaky sound of an abandoned harmonium in Punch-Drunk Love; frogs falling from the sky in Magnolia.
| 9/19/2012
- 'Celeste and Jesse Forever' offers a sweet, witty change of pace
As someone who loathes the conventions and clichés of most modern-day romantic comedies as much as I do, actress/writer/producer Rashida Jones...
| 8/29/2012
- Frank Langella delivers another Oscar-worthy performance in 'Robot & Frank'
Idea for a movie: a former cat burglar showing early signs of Alzheimer's gets help in the form of a robot as a present from his son...
| 8/29/2012
- Killer Joe strikes like an unapologetic Texas rattlesnake
If a film like 2011's sexually explicit British drama Shame taught us anything, it's that being slapped with a dreaded NC-17 rating these days doesn't always...
| 8/22/2012
- An extremely up-close encounter with Neil Young
Neil Young Journeys completes director Jonathan Demme's trilogy of concert films centered on Neil Young. While 2006's Neil Young: Heart of...
| 8/8/2012
- 'Wolf' gnaws over sexual predators in church, but fails to tackle the hardest questions
The drama of a dutiful boy abused in church, Wolf was written and directed by a local kid who made good. A graduate of San Antonio's Sam Houston High School who...
| 8/1/2012
- Good intentions can’t salvage Tyler’s Gift as cliché melodrama
There's no denying the strength and courage local actor John Lambert and son Johnny must've summoned to star in the short film Tyler's Gift. This past March, Lambert's wife of nearly 15 years, Ivania...
| 7/25/2012
- 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' is both highly personal and massive in scope
Vegan aspiring photographers beware: Film is actually made of once-living material—mashed-up bone, flattened, and rolled up in strips.
| 7/25/2012
- 'The Dark Knight Rises' underwhelms, but trilogy ends solidly enough
In full scope, The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final installment of director Christopher Nolan's Batman series, feels epic. From its majestic production value to its incredible...
| 7/20/2012
- ‘Amazing’ Spider-Man devolves to merely average in this unnecessary reboot
With the first three Spider-Man movies raking in almost $2.5 billion worldwide at the box office from 2002 to 2007, there was no way Marvel Studios and
| 7/4/2012
- Woody Allen’s Italian midsummer night's sex comedy finishes first
Woody Allen, who once declared, “I am at two with nature,” is smitten with great cities. New York is his first and enduring love, but in recent years he has also...
| 7/3/2012
- 'Ted' jokes hit and miss, but Seth MacFarlane devotees won't mind one bit
Leave it to the hysterically twisted and juvenile mind of Seth MacFarlane to turn something as cuddly and lovable as a childhood stuffed animal into a perverted, profane pothead.
| 7/2/2012
- ‘Moonrise Kingdom,’ one of Wes Anderson’s best movies
The characters in Wes Anderson's movies live in a fantasyland. Going back to his 1998 breakthrough Rushmore to 2009′s Fantastic Mr. Fox (a stop-motion animated film...
| 6/23/2012
- ‘Brave’: Pixar goes Disney in its first period piece
Princess Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) has a problem with authority, especially her nagging mom, who just wants her to settle down with a...
| 6/23/2012
- 'Total Recall' (1990) vs. 'Total Recall' (opening Aug. 3, 2012)
'Total Recall' (1990) vs. 'Total Recall' (opening Aug. 3, 2012)
| 6/20/2012
- 'Beasts' beats out 'Batman', 'Brave' in 'Current' summer film top 10
Most, if not all, of these movies will open in San Antonio either as part of the same nationwide release. But, as is the case with anything studio-related, dates may...
| 6/20/2012
- Movies by Moonlight's kid-friendly fourth year
The popular Movies by Moonlight series, presented by the City of San Antonio, has returned to HemisFair Park, with films screened weekly through August near the...
| 6/20/2012
- 'Rock of Ages': A highly polished, utterly false musical approximation of a rebel yell: The Musical!
Somewhere around Glee’s third season, I stopped watching altogether. I’d been a vocal proponent (and, only when pushed, an outspoken hater) of the alternately...
| 6/15/2012
- Vibrator-focused rom-com 'Hysteria' pushes all the wrong buttons
Director Tanya Wexler’s Hysteria, a rom-com historical revision set in late-19th century London about the invention of the vibrator, actually does a great service to its male audience...
| 6/14/2012
- 'Madagascar 3': Going through the motions
The Penguins of Madagascar is one of the few TV shows that's better than the movies it's spun off from. That's probably why the third outing in this...
| 6/13/2012