Revolver, a film with the convincing appearance of a violent, stylized gangster piece, a film that may just be too brilliant and enlightened for its own good, has been almost universally panned by critics and audiences. Some simply were not expecting this from Ritchie. Some were impatient with its outlandish intricacy and wrote it off as pretentious and self- indulgent. Some indulged to an extent in its complexity and felt led by the nose. What is peculiar is that all reasons are correct assumptions. That is why Revolver is a work of tremendous genius by a filmmaker who, despite the vast entertainment of his previous gangster movies, has not in his three feature films prior shown even the half of it...[more]...

It's all been said about A Clockwork Orange, I think. From McDowell's eerie iconic performance to the controversy over its supposedly "pornographic" violence to its satirical portrayal of governmental and civic abuse of liberty, this utterly genre-less work of sublimity remains one of those mystifying pinwheels of the cinema. Kubrick's painterly, insoluble kaleidoscope is most often explained as political satire, or dystopian sci-fi, or a crime drama, while its intersecting allure to the horror fan community is clearly pervasive. Though I don't pretend to entirely understand this film, I nevertheless find it profound and unique, especially in its loaded portrayal of the psychosomatic associations we make with music, or that music makes with us. A crucial musical instant in Kubrick's inspired carrying out of Anthony Burgess' inventive story comes when Alex bursts into song in the bath...[more]...

We open as Matt Damon, a surefire candidate for senator, is familiarized to us via a pretty uninspired hodgepodge that includes the as-themselves cameos we now wait for in politically themed films, to provide what might misguidedly be referred to as realism. But he loses his lead and, rehearsing his concession speech in a hotel restroom, discovers Emily Blunt hiding from security. Instantly attracted to each other, of course, they kiss before being interrupted, of course. But, inspired by this stranger's generic advice, he makes a truly candid speech that revitalizes his ratings. But he ends up falling for that fleeting woman, becoming increasingly distracted from his career, despite mysterious men collaborating to keep them apart...[more]...

Number six in J.K. Rowling's succession of thunderously well-liked stories smacks of a less ostentatious, far more worthwhile approach than the typical annual bigger-is-better summer blockbuster: What we need aren't larger effects but more moving ones, which requires a tale worth telling. Half-Blood Prince's effects are placed so nonchalantly in their invented world that we effortlessly buy into their realism. The brass owl adorning the podium in Hogwarts' dining hall trims until Dumbledore steps forth, when it respectfully strikes a pose and freezes. When Hermione restocks books in the library, they leap out of her hands and locate their proper slots on even the highest shelves. A more-interesting-than-usual quidditch game is set during a convincing, silky snowfall. Magic occurs here as the characters are occupied with love and brokenheartedness. This is a fantasy film, but the subtle idea huddled within is that there's unexplainable fascination adjoining the everyday...[more]...

It's blistering. Harry is overcast with lonesomeness, bullied by his abusive cousin Dudley, also in the testosterone throes of puberty. And this is when Dementors attack, those hellish soul-eaters, the terror keepers of the wizard prison. What they're doing here is unknown at present, but that's what makes it especially tense. Newbie director David Yates' refusal to go easy on his audience, regardless of age, is evident right away. There's magic here, but there's nothing saccharine or bright about it. This is magic as power, as an illustration of familiar human urges both dignified and horrendous, as something as real, bleak and patent as the tattered, graffiti-scribbled pedestrian tunnel, severely lit in gray-green, in which the Dementors assail...[more]...

Like its two predecessors, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an out-of-this-world triumph in production design. But it's the first to depict not only the sensation of yearning propelling the characters at the heart of the world constructed by Stuart Craig, but a grasp of the way the supernatural lies beneath the ordinary, rather than merely frolicking whimsically at a frivolous remoteness from it. It's far less self-conscious about how to gratify an audience as immediately as possible and isn't as unquestioningly cooperative with the conventional modern family blockbuster mold. A new director with a diverse point of view can recoat and ventilate a series that could otherwise fall back on tired reiteration, which it previously seemed poised to do, and Alfonso Cuaron, a clever, unique and energetic filmmaker with a highly sensitive eye for quirky nuances, has done what few sequel custodians ever achieve or care to achieve, stimulating the characters and story arcs...[more]...

As luck would have it, Chamber of Secrets has more of a story sweep than its forerunner, though it lacks much determination or tension. But, most importantly, it does preserve the light-hearted sense of humor and childlike buoyancy that made the first film entertaining. The humor is slightly on the mawkish side this time, and Columbus hasn't decided against tacking on another winning-is-good wrap-up, this time even more peppered with honey-baked schmaltz than last time, but the light-hearted youthful nature of the material is still intact and keeps it engaging even for those of us who haven't seen it in nearly ten years...[more]...

Gone With the Wind was another literary phenomenon that produced a film rendering that had to meet equally exacting fan qualifications. It's comparable in the sense that everyone had an attitude about the casting, which in due course resulted wonderfully. The novelists required a loyalty to the manuscript, which was respected. Directors were enlisted who could be relied upon to deferentially work for the material. Immeasurable arithmetic was done while constructing the corporal worlds of the novels. Producers challenged standard constraints about running time to incorporate all the indispensable narrative episodes...[more]...

The notion that we get married for the reason that we long more for a spectator of our lives than a partner may give an insight into the distressed minds of the matrimonial pair in this so-close-it-hurts powerhouse, which tracks them throughout their first six years of spectatorship. Or was that Dean's requirement, and did Cindy elude the excitement of the view? Here's a film that sees quite clearly itself. Derek Cianfrance, the film's co-writer and director, studies with intense precision the beginning and decomposition of a passionate relationship. This film is vibrant in its particulars...[more]...

Natural Born Killers was never meant as a condemnation of violence. How can one honestly condemn an instinctive state of humanity? What it does is draw attention to the structure that perpetuates and refines it, and at that which envelopes it for mass intake. The film emerges from a time when that achieved an extraordinary altitude...[more]...

Sarah Silverman is clever, hilarious and sucker-punches you with unanticipated reversals. She's one of the most skillful current young comics at prickly and violating humor that cuts through the watered-down amateurism of so many modern male comedians who kill their own timing with a rock-star façade and stadium atmosphere. Silverman is tall, brunette and certainly attractive, and she says outrageous things with the clear-cut diction and self-assurance of a girl who was raised knowing how to make a good impression. The detach between what she says and how she says it is part of the effect. If you're going to use not merely the homeless and the handicapped but sacred cows like cancer, AIDS and 9/11 in jest, it's good to know how to pick up the go-ahead from the audience. Her way of doing that is by seeming as if to be too polite to understand what she's saying. When she uses the word "retards" she at once clarifies that it's offensive and explains: "When I say 'retards,' I mean they can do anything." None of her shticks last long enough to develop. She gets a laugh, and then another one, a third, then quits while she's ahead and goes off on another trajectory. We want her to persist more, heaping one political black eye on top of another. We want to see her in a groove...[more]...

Friedkin outlines Nick Nolte's Coach Bell as a guy who's on the spot. Shoulders arched and head low, Bell moves through unadorned halls, overcrowded locker rooms. "There's not one of you that's learned how to win!" He thunders out, slamming the door only to come back to heave a water tank across the room and trudge out again. On the court, fans shouting, cheerleaders abound, band playing, Bell's face is anxious, his fuse lit again. Cries and chaos churn around Bell like he's within a bulldozer. His university team plays vigorously, but drop the ball, miss hoops. He hangs a towel overhead to shield his eyes. At loggerheads with a ref, Bell kicks the ball up into the stands and is disqualified. After winning national championships, Nolte's Bell is at risk of having his first losing season. And joblessness...[more]...

From the first frame on, we're relating to Conroy's frantic thoughts. Who can he call who can free him before the oxygen in the coffin comes to an end? Mercifully the coffin is longer than normal, affording it more air and also particular camera angles that develop the action. And there is action. Even if the whole movie is set in the enclosed plot, director Rodrigo Cortes and writer Chris Sparling are inspired in creating more credible action than one would imagine achievable. They also permit themselves some POV shots from beyond the coffin, not above ground, but just from indeterminate darkness above the rectangular prison...[more]...

American cinema in the 1970s was marked by the new generation of filmmakers' bombshell of originality, liveliness, sexuality and a fervor for the artistic importance of film itself, with a pervading emphasis on realism, subversive political themes and sexual candor. But what won Best Picture in the year of Taxi Driver, Network and All the President's Men---the legendary arguable masterpieces of three of contemporary cinema's finest directors---is this paint-by-numbers inspirational sports flick. Stallone's screenplay is the most wholesome 1930s Hollywood fantasy. It's the tale of Rocky and his girl Adrian, when he, because of conditions too irrational to go into, is given the chance to fight the world heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed, fashioned after Muhammad Ali so sketchily as to be a practically senseless misuse of character. It's not sufficient enough to even be defamation, but by making the Ali-like fighter such a garish fool, the film treads regions of undeveloped racism that might not be all that undeveloped...[more]...

Both sides concur that the eponymous civil rights demonstration in Derry, Northern Ireland, ended with a skirmish between some of the demonstrators and British army paratroopers. Ultimately, 13 demonstrators were dead and 14 in the hospital, one of whom later died. None of the casualties were British troops. A formal inquest proclaimed that the soldiers had defended its position against armed demonstrators. Some of the soldiers involved were later honored by the crown...[more]...