1. David O. Russell is a director who doesn't know what he's doing. I say this with legitimate, if cautious,…
1. "Don't knock masturbation," says Woody Allen's Alvy Singer in Annie Hall. "It's sex with someone I love." Her is…
Expectations are such tricky things when it comes to movies. Before the first installment in Peter Jackson's The…
Joel and Ethan Coen have been making movies long enough now that it's possible for fans not just to have a favorite…
When Barack Obama made his comment during the 2008 presidential campaign about some Americans clinging to "guns and…
Vince Vaughn has an affable, doughy countenance that's so appealingly ordinary that sometimes it's impossible to…
1. The first Hunger Games movie was entertaining enough, but still plodding, awkward, and weighed down with so much…
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My favorite Alexander Payne movie is always going to be Election. His 1999 satire—about a high school teacher…
1. It's funny how many of the Avengers are stiffs. Sure, Iron Man is all wry and meta, and The Hulk, particularly…
Hollywood movies get a lot of things wrong: Midwesterners, marriage, transforming robots. But Last Vegas reminds us…
In his blistering, deeply moving Grantland essay about 12 Years A Slave, Wesley Morris lays waste to decades of…
Blue Is the Warmest Color should have been one of the feel-good stories of the fall. A moving three-hour drama about…
It's touching to watch Sylvester Stallone try to act. In his early days with Rocky, the guy had charm, an ability to…
1. I never got to write about Gravity in this space—Grierson took that for us—but I found it as terrific as most…
1. Twelve Years a Slave is a devastating movie experience, one that will leave you shaking with anger. This is not…
1. There's a moment in Paul Greengrass' United 93, one of the best films of the last decade, in which we are invited…
Some directors never make the same film twice. They move around between genres, challenging audiences to try to…
1. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of those actors for whom I find it nearly impossible not to root. He has an inherent,…
Rush succeeds not just because of what it is but because of what it isn't. A sports drama based on a true story, the…