Film & TV

Where does Larry King belong in relation to Ghostbusters? If you answered that he probably knows the famous spectral exterminators well, having been mistaken as a walking corpse by countless concerned citizens, you would be wrong. Mr. King can thank the civet cat for providing him with the enviable status of being only one degree of separation shy of the 1984 classic. After a nice meal and some r–and–r the night before Thanksgiving, my recently–reunited family settled down for some bonding time.
December 2, 2010 at 3:13 am

Black Swan begins with an exhilarating ballet number. The camera circles continuously around Nina (Portman) as she performs Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a ballet that requires her to adopt the personalities of both the “White Swan” and the “Black Swan.” The cinematography and choreography are breathtaking as the number progresses, slowly spiraling out of control as the dark side increasingly takes over. This tension between the bipolar personalities of Swan Lake’s protagonist drives the film, as Nina embodies the White Swan’s grace and fragility but cannot quite demonstrate the manic intensity required to play the Black Swan.
December 2, 2010 at 3:11 am

It’s telling that The Fighter is named as such. A more descriptive title might have been “The Boxer,” but this is not a biopic about boxing.
December 2, 2010 at 3:09 am

It’s late afternoon on a cloudy day in Los Angeles, and everyone in the press room has a reason to be nervous.
December 2, 2010 at 1:55 am

Faster’s unoriginal and awful title suggests a forgettable experience, and unfortunately the film’s content does nothing to counteract our initial impression.
November 23, 2010 at 5:20 pm

In 127 Hours, Aron Ralston’s lower arm joins one of the many body parts lost to the world of celluloid.
November 18, 2010 at 4:48 am

As is the problem with all book adaptations, the Harry Potter movies struggle between appeasing pedantic super fans and providing enough modification to warrant a cinematic retelling.
November 18, 2010 at 4:44 am

Aron Ralston traveled to a national park in Utah for a typical adventure involving rock climbing and hiking.
November 18, 2010 at 4:41 am

Earlier this week, an ancient horse statue was recovered in Hawaii, barely escaping an attempted theft by an imposter posing as a Mrs. Carol Brady’s deceased husband, who had originally discovered the statue shortly before being murdered under mysterious circumstances. Mrs. Brady was kidnapped from her home in California by said imposter, who had integrated himself into the Brady family, taking the family for shopping trips and gifting Mike Brady’s son, Peter, with a pair of nunchucks. The imposter was discovered by super sleuths and step–siblings Bobby and Cindy Brady, who had recently been given a detective kit. The entire incident is thought to be Jan Brady’s fault. Well, that’s almost how it happened.
November 18, 2010 at 4:39 am

Despite its title, the number of alien creatures in Monsters is relatively low. The buzz emanating from this budget indie certainly isn’t on account of the film’s surprise scares or special effects. The earth has been infected by specimens of another life form travelling back into orbit from a spacecraft that crashed over Mexico.
November 12, 2010 at 4:32 pm

Early on in Alex Gibney’s well-crafted documentary film, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced Governor looks dead into the camera and remarks of his downfall, “It’s not a new story.” He’s absolutely right, but it’s nonetheless a fascinating story to be told. The film provides a detailed (if biased) account of a man who used his aggressive style as Attorney General of New York to catapult himself to the Governorship, only to allow excessive personal vices, in the form of four-figure “escorts,” to destroy his political career.
November 12, 2010 at 4:22 pm

“A boy’s best friend is his mother,” said Norman Bates… or perhaps the man who recently ran off with his mother’s corpse.
November 11, 2010 at 3:17 am

Romantic comedies have long struggled with sexism, despite their being targeted toward a female audience.
November 11, 2010 at 3:15 am

Registration is no doubt competitive for students trying to snag the best courses, but did you know that it’s competitive for professors as well?
November 11, 2010 at 2:59 am

Director Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things, High Fidelity) may very well be the most interesting and prolific British filmmaker of the past half century.
November 4, 2010 at 6:28 pm

A comedy about jihad is certain to cause a stir, and indeed Four Lions made headlines at the Sundance Film Festival back in January.
November 4, 2010 at 6:23 pm

Last week we profiled two films featured at the Philadelphia Film Festival that have struggled with NC–17 ratings, known to be box office poison.
November 4, 2010 at 2:35 am

Withhold thine judgment, middle America! Let he who has never gotten coked up and naked with a pornstar and trashed his Plaza hotel room while on a family vacation cast the first stone.
November 4, 2010 at 2:34 am

Tyler Perry’s latest film, based on Ntozake Shange's award–winning play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, follows the trials and tribulations of several black women, played by big names like Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah!
November 4, 2010 at 2:31 am

It takes a lot to make a movie starring Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. anything less than extraordinary, but somehow Due Date manages to do this with surprising ease.
November 4, 2010 at 2:28 am