AltWeeklies Wire
Stripped Down Bond No Competition With Craig’s 007 Around
The 23rd installment in the longest-running franchise in cinema history is crafted to satisfy fans from every era of the series based on the Ian Fleming novels. Sam Mendes tastefully directs this outing of action-based espionage, gently shifting gears between a literary approach to wit, style, personality, and spectacle.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
11-05-2012 |
Reviews
Spielberg Doesn’t Trouble the Water: Daniel Day Lewis Flawless as Always
See the film for Daniel Day Lewis. As for the “history lesson” on display, take it with a grain of salt.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
11-04-2012 |
Reviews
Goth Penn: Sean Penn Goes Out On a Limb
“This Must Be the Place” is a canny model of life-affirming cinema.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
10-29-2012 |
Reviews
Down In Flames: Robert Zemeckis Burns the Popcorn
Enjoyable in that Hollywood-popcorn way for which Robert Zemeckis is famous— see “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” skip “Forest Gump” — “Flight” is a drama that would have been better without the director's love of schmaltz.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
10-29-2012 |
Reviews
Connection Lost The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer Play the Wrong Loops
“Cloud Atlas” wants to be more than it is. For a movie pitched as a Meta-Meta exploration linking all of humanity through the ancient past to the recent past to the faraway future, it nosedives before getting out of the gate.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
10-22-2012 |
Reviews
Getting Busy: Mark O’Brien’s Introduction to Sex Opens Doors
The most unlikely film of 2012, “The Sessions” is a defiant romantic comedy of serious import that pushes the boundaries of R-rated intimacy.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
10-15-2012 |
Reviews
Back In Time: Sci-fi Thriller Can’t Solve its Own Loopholes
As time-travel suspense thrillers go “Looper” is only a pinch better than mediocre.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
09-24-2012 |
Reviews
Girl Power: Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson Save A Cappella Comedy
Essentially a glorified episode of the television show “Glee,” “Pitch Perfect” is a spotty coming-of-age comedy that only marginally pays off on its promise of delivering harmonized vocal virtuosity.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
09-24-2012 |
Reviews
Bad Cop to Good Cop: David Ayers Switches Teams
“End of Watch” is a gritty brief apologia from writer-director David Ayer for his less than complementary Los Angeles copsploitation films “Training Day” and “Harsh Times.”
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
09-18-2012 |
Reviews
Loving Up Wall Street Corruption: Nicholas Jarecki Caters to the One Percent
Some not-so-fancy narrative mechanics set Richard Gere up as a one-percenter antihero in a movie that deplorably attempts to mitigate the evil that wealthy corruption loves to wield at every level of social injustice.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
09-10-2012 |
Reviews
The Pitfalls of Academia: Josh Radnor Shows You Can’t Go Back
Writer-director-actor Josh Radnor follows up his debut feature (“Happythankyoumoreplease”) with a compact romantic comedy that almost works, but not quite.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
09-10-2012 |
Reviews
Moonshine Rebels: Public Enemy Era Splashes with Booze and Blood
Inflected with the same gritty appreciation for brutal violence that director John Hillcoat applied to his Australian-set period Western “The Proposition,” “Lawless” is a Depression era bootleg gangster fantasy baked in booze, blood, and grime.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
08-28-2012 |
Reviews
Almost Human: Frank Langella Accepts His Inner Machine
from an actor’s showcase perspective, the film allows the redoubtable Frank Langella to cast his glowing spell over his audience.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
08-20-2012 |
Reviews
Ghost Story: Rebecca Hall Goes Gothic
“The Awakening” is an old-fashioned haunted house story with a couple of neat twists.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
08-20-2012 |
Reviews
Cole Smithey Fall 2012 Movie Preview
Autumn is the best season for moviegoers. Oscar-bait movies from all corners of foreign, independent, documentaries, and of course Hollywood, are pitted against one another in an ever more crowded series of weekly release windows than usual.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
08-17-2012 |
Movies
