AltWeeklies Wire
The Power of Positive Drinking: Teen Alcoholism Has its Perks
“The Spectacular Now” is the work of inexperienced screenwriters. We know this because of their handling — or rather mishandling — of the film’s underlying theme of teen alcoholism.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-29-2013 |
Movies
Blue and Cold: Woody Allen’s Ghost Roams Empty Halls
Woody Allen has bottomed out. His latest attempt at interpreting yet another global mecca — this time San Francisco — through a prism of flailing romance, barely manages to elicit a couple of subdued chuckles.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-23-2013 |
Movies
Gatsby In Hell: Flames of Incompetence Consume Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann’s bastardization of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is a demeaning travesty.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
05-20-2013 |
Movies
Ivy League Tina Fey — Higher Learning Gets Schooled
An above-average romantic comedy, “Admission” profits considerably from Tina Fey’s reliable comic efforts as Portia Nathan, a Princeton University admissions officer approaching an unforeseen midlife crisis.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
03-19-2013 |
Movies
Believin’ — Carell and Carrey Cast a Comic Spell
Artfully satirizing the in-your-face state of modern magic — as practiced by the likes of David Blaine and Criss Angel — while celebrating the cheesy aspects of old school slight-of-hand tricks, “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is an effective comedy that covers a lot of ground.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
03-12-2013 |
Movies
Cole Smithey Predicts the 2013 Oscars
Ah, the glorious flaws of democracy! As a film critic, I learned long ago to abandon any sense of personal investment in the conclusions drawn by Academy Award voters about the most deserving participants in the seventh arts.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-04-2013 |
Movies
Cole Smithey Predicts the 2013 Oscars
Ah the glorious flaws of democracy. As a film critic, I learned long ago to abandon any sense of personal investment in the conclusions drawn by Academy Award voters about the most deserving participants in the seventh arts.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
01-22-2013 |
Movies
Seeking Justice: Ken Burns Takes One for the Team
It’s tempting to think that gross miscarriages of justice are less likely to occur in big cities, where police and judicial oversight are theoretically more prevalent than small insular towns — like Memphis for example.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
11-20-2012 |
Movies
Ang Lee Goes Big: Ocean Survival Story Raises the Bar on Spectacle
Gracefully sidestepping its overreaching, religiously didactic premise — that the unfolding story offers up absolute proof of God — Ang Lee’s lush 3D adaptation of Yann Martel’s restrained novel of magical realism is a stunner.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
11-19-2012 |
Movies
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
Cole Smithey’s Worst & Best Films of 2011
This year’s 10 best films showed an exceptional amount of originality, rigor, and inventiveness. It’s with great pleasure that I share my favorite examples of why I keep returning to the cinema day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
12-12-2011 |
Movies
What You're Not Supposed to Know About 3D
To listen to Variety's 3D-guru David Cohen talk you'd think that we'll all be wearing 3D glasses for every movie we see in the coming years.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
01-17-2011 |
Movies
Cole Smithey's Top Ten Films of 2010
2010 was a year of surprises at the cinema, not all of them good.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
01-04-2011 |
Movies
Why VOD is Inevitable
Video on Demand is already poised serve the full spectrum of Hollywood, foreign, and independent films.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
07-10-2010 |
Movies
Whose Turn is It Now? The 2010 Oscar Race
You can practically already hear Academy Award producers shouting, after the fact, "Whose idea was this?" about changes in the ceremony that are doomed to be criticized for months after the last statue is handed out.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-25-2010 |
Movies
Tags: The 2010 Oscar Race, Cole Smithey
