The Coen brothers' first literary adaptation, from a Cormac McCarthy original, an overflowingly bloody pulp thriller, plumped up with folksy first-person social commentary in italics, about a Texas good ole boy who stumbles upon the internecine scene of a drug deal gone bad, makes off with a satchel of cash, …
Johnny Depp stumbles, staggers, lurches, leers, preens, pratfalls, and melancholily mugs his way back into the role that made him rich: Captain Jack Sparrow, the poncy pirate. But he’s no longer particularly clever nor particularly funny (“Think Captain Jack is washed up, eh? I’ve not had a wash in years!”), …
Factual story of a Spanish quadriplegic who, after twenty-some years of paralysis, took his fight to the courts for the right to die. Given its intrinsic limitations, the film is well directed (by Alejandro Amenábar), well photographed (by Javier Aguirresarobe, who collaborated with this director on The Others), and well …
A family man torn between his wife and his homosexual lover. Soapy drama; soupy music. Well acted by Javier Bardem (especially), Ariadna Gil, and Cecilia Roth; overacted by Jordi Mollà. Directed by Gerardo Vera.
James Bond lumbers back to his roots. A Bond film is supposed to deliver mayhem and eye candy in exotic locales; Skyfall offers memorable set pieces in Shanghai, Scotland, and an abandoned island factory compound. A Bond film needs gadgets; Skyfall knowingly gives us a personalized Walther and a radio …
In his fourth outing, Daniel Craig's iteration of superspy James Bond takes his undersized suits, hangdog expression, and psychological damage on an epic, eye-popping, worldwide hunt for...closure? (The personal and political are pretty much identical here, and a spectre is, of course, a ghost — the sort of things that …
A corporate satire about the charismatic and manipulative owner of an industrial scales manufacturing business in a provincial Spanish town who is awaiting a visit by a committee that could give his company yet another award for business excellence. Obsessed with scoring the award, and against all odds, he tries …
Director Terrence Malick turns his camera on the transcendent character of love - an admittedly difficult trick. Love isn't as easy to catch on film as, say, lovers (Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko). But Malick has an eye for turning external landscapes into signposts of the interior life: the island …
You can’t claim that Woody Allen’s rapid rate of production doesn’t show. Even the title of this one sounds more like brainstorming for a title than like a final decision: three names off the chalkboard of keywords. Vicky and Cristina, two separate people, are dissimilar American friends, the first pragmatic …