AltWeeklies Wire
Dallas Buyers Club is a drama of the AIDS crisisnew
As good as Matthew McConaughey is here — and this is the performance of his suddenly rising career — he is repeatedly upstaged by Jared Leto.
Tags: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Matt Damon's anti-fracking Promised Landnew
It's hard to achieve high-minded aims using this single-minded script, acting and filmmaking acumen.
Daniel Day-Lewis ends slavery in Lincolnnew
Steven Spielberg's Lincoln accomplishes the seemingly irreconcilable feat of humanizing Abraham Lincoln while preserving his mythology.
Idiosyncratic vision of American empire in The Masternew
In The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) returns to familiar themes of his short but resplendent filmography: the search for a father figure or lost son; dysfunctional family relationships; and flawed men fated to self-destruction.
Rock of Ages is good only for the nostalgianew
While the soundtrack may have your toes tapping, director Adam Shankman's staging is slapdash and silly, as if he was assembling a hair band-themed amusement park ride.
Tags: Rock of Ages
For Jesse Owens, What Happened After the Olympics Is Its Own Storynew
The son of Alabama sharecroppers and grandson of a slave, Jesse Owens won a record four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Five months later, he was racing a gelding for money on a dirt track in Cuba.
Every parent's nightmare in We Need to Talk About Kevinnew
The bulk of Kevin is art house horror; Swinton confers its humanity.
RailHawks' new coach Colin Clarke has puzzling past of undervalued successnew
Clarke's journey to Carolina is the latest chapter in a footballing life spanning two continents, five decades and a series of lofty heights and ignominious setbacks.
Not Your Reagan-era 21 Jump Streetnew
This remake is more deconstruction than devotion, and if you don't believe me, wait and see how it handles a particular high-profile cameo.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close's premise is apposite and affectingnew
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close tackles 9/11, a cinematic third-rail used as the milieu for films both brilliant (United 93) and inept (World Trade Center; Remember Me).
With War Horse, Spielberg makes his WWI movienew
Steven Spielberg adeptly captures the transitional nature of the Great War, one of the last fought with horses and swords.
The American Girl with the Dragon Tattoonew
David Fincher's remake of Girl remains as cold as its Swedish winterscape, but the actors frequently appear to be mechanically hitting their marks, often in conspicuous proximity to product placement.
The Best (So-So) Movies of 2011new
Five lists from five film critics, and a few quibbles ...
INDY Week |
Craig D. Lindsey, David Fellerath, Neil Morris, Nathan Gelgud and Laura Boyes |
12-21-2011 |
Movies
Tags: Best Movies of 2011
To the End of Hawaii with George Clooney in The Descendantsnew
Director Alexander Payne—who has married and divorced since Paul Giamatti sipped wine in his last film, Sideways—now presents a character who enjoys redemption only once his wife is brain-dead and on a ventilator.
Pedro Almodovar's bizarre but bloodless The Skin I Live Innew
The Skin I Live In is a hyper-realized illustration of Almodovar's fondness for audience manipulation.
