Hey, ‘Lucky Ones’: There’s a war going on
For the first 15 minutes, I assumed that The Lucky Ones—a movie  with the comically generic tag line “Sometimes losing your way home means finding yourself”—was a heartfelt drama about soldiers returning home from Iraq. I was incorrect. The Lucky Ones is, in fact, a heartfelt comedy about [...]

‘Choke’ for diehard Palahniuk fans only

Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s flawed fourth novel had the opportunity to be that rare beast: a movie that’s better than the book. Instead, it hews too closely to its source, and so bears the burdens of the novel. Choke is the story of Victor Mancini (the talented Sam [...]

Don’t call LaBute’s ‘Lakeview Terrace’ a comeback
Those into cinematic arcs of descent could do worse than study the career of Neil LaBute. Once indie cinema’s reigning Old Man Grumpus, (courtesy of 1997’s bruising In the Company of Men), the filmmaker squandered his cred on a series of pictures that took his knack for the bracingly [...]

The visceral discomfort of ‘Towelhead’

The directorial debut of Alan Ball (writer of American Beauty and Six Feet Under), Towelhead wants you to know that IT IS NOT AFRAID TO MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. Starting with the racial slur of the title, the film—based on the 2005 novel by Alicia Erian—plays heavy-handed with ye olde taboos: Menses! [...]

What Diane Keaton would say about ‘The Women’

What’s up, bitches? Diane Keaton here. I just got back from seeing The Women and, um, I couldn’t help but notice something: I AM NOT IN THIS MOVIE. Where the fuck am I? I am the queen bee of this shit. The hive mother. Annette Benning wishes she [...]

‘Burn After Reading’ is an astute, brutal comedy

It’s weird, but I don’t even think of Brad Pitt as an actor anymore. I think of him as a photograph—a still image in a tabloid looking serene and carrying around 15 babies. But Pitt does, in fact, act in Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers’ follow-up to [...]

‘Transsiberian’ brings the Russians back as villains
For a professedly Hitchcockian thriller, Brad Anderson’s follow-up to The Machinist is a little obvious. Some nice Christian women have checkered pasts? No shit. Ben Kingsley looks awesome in a furry Russian hat? So true. But if you concentrate very hard and don’t let the blaring danger cues spoil [...]

‘I Served the King of England’ captures Bohumil Hrabal’s sense of fun

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring, when Czechoslovakia—then controlled by the USSR—got a new president who ushered in a season of happy reform: art and literature flourished, the press rediscovered its backbone, civic rights were restored. (Sound familiar?) The joy [...]

‘In Search of a Midnight Kiss’ oozes charm
This little indie movie, exquisitely filmed in black and white digital by Robert Murphy (who also has a small part as a needy, violent hick), is notable primarily for its attempt to see Los Angeles from a pedestrian’s point of view. The climax of the movie is a [...]

‘Traitor’ is strictly TV movie fare

When watching Traitor, the viewer is overcome by the weirdest urge: You want to will the movie to become better than it really is. The story, conceived by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin)—taking a “cop undercover in the mob” movie and shifting it to the FBI [...]