“Everybody, quiet please.” Look, I’m going to keep this brief. I have gifts to wrap, parties to attend and loved ones (both family and friend) to visit. And frankly, this doesn’t require a lot of discussion. French director Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist” is one of those films that is very difficult to criticize, unless you [...]

“This is not above-board.” When Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carre’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” was initially released, lead actor Gary Oldman pointed out in a radio interview that the director and his director of photography, Hoyte Van Hoytema, were going for a very specific color scheme. “They were trying to achieve the smell [...]

“Mission accomplished!” I’ll assume it is a sweet sense of cinematic nostalgia in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” that finds an old favorite, The Madman with Nuclear Weapons (and the will to use them), as the villain.  Top it off:  he’s Russian…so, what is this, 1985?  His reasons are not entirely clear other than he’s [...]

“This is so deliciously complicated.” Guy Ritchie’s 2009 “Sherlock Holmes” was a departure from his gruff oeuvre of contemporary Brit criminals and low-life shenanigans. It was also a winning adaptation that resulted in hefty box office returns and an engaging reason for star Robert Downey, Jr. to not wear a certain suit of armor. Teamed [...]

“…and here came the victim’s sister, to defend his honor…with a butcher knife.” This statement, early in Steve James’ piercing documentary “The Interrupters,” is made by Ameena, one of a team of “violence interrupters” working for the Chicago-based CeaseFire program. Started in 2004, CeaseFire isn’t as interested in breaking up gangs or preventing drug use; [...]

“Thank you for the movie today. It was a gift.” As “Hugo” begins, we get to swoop down through the sky over 1930′s Paris until we have been swept inside a massive, bustling train station, where young Hugo (Asa Butterfield) can be found, peering out from behind the face of a clock. The boy single-handedly [...]

“Maniacal laugh…maniacal laugh…” “The Muppets” will work best for those who feel a rich nostalgia for the characters from having grown up watching them on TV. It will also work for small children who have never heard of them. The rather large audience that will possibly ignore the film are those who covet irony, sarcasm [...]

“You can’t buy your way out of this.” Matt King faces a number of imminent challenges: he is the controlling vote in his family’s sale of a massive tract of undeveloped land on the Hawaiian island of Kauai; his wife Elizabeth is in a coma following a boating incident; and his daughters Alexandra (the rebellious [...]

“…from that point on, I’ve had a different outlook on life.” Arguably one of the finest documentary filmmakers in the history of cinema (and not a slouch with narrative features either), Werner Herzog grasps hold of subjects that seem to have arrived on the wind (Natural beauty in the Antarctic? A stunning cave in France? [...]

“Like a drop of water on glass…” Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In” is an exquisite, if thoroughly creepy and disturbing, piece of Spanish Gothic. Brimming with unease, lushly photographed, and starring Antonio Banderas at his most dashing opposite Elena Anaya (arguably one of the most beautiful women on the planet), the film is [...]