AltWeeklies Wire
The Big Killer: Michael Shannon Gets Cold
A refreshing addition to the contract killer biopic genre, Ariel Vromen’s Friedkinesque dramatization of Richard Kuklinski’s rise and fall, via three decades of heinous crimes, is a doozy.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
04-29-2013 |
Reviews
Open House - François Ozon Lifts a Veil on Social Development
François Ozon’s slow-burn comic thriller is a sensitive observation of a global race-to-the-bottom that is devaluing culture in all of its varied forms.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
04-22-2013 |
Reviews
Navel Gazing Through a Telescope: Terrence Malick’s Failed Experiment Leaves a Black Eye
Terrence Malick still hasn’t made a remarkable film since 1978. That was the year he made “Days of Heaven” — not to be confused with “Gates of Heaven.”
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
04-15-2013 |
Reviews
Menaces in the Machine The Modern Age Isn’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be
In an age where people obsess over their cellphones to the exclusion of the physical world around them, a dystopian malady takes over.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
04-10-2013 |
Reviews
Breaking the Chain of Racism: Jackie Robinson is Still in Play
Writer-director Brian Helgeland’s methodically balanced biopic about revered baseball legend Jackie Robinson manages a near-impossible feat of offering all things to all people. Baseball fans, civil rights followers, and casual filmgoers will be rewarded with a film that is equal parts history lesson and pure entertainment.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
04-08-2013 |
Reviews
Vague Leftovers — Robert Redford Shrink-Wraps Leftists Ideals
A movie in search of a story, this Robert Redford-directed flop has all the interest and suspense of a piece of burnt toast.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
04-01-2013 |
Reviews
Split Narrative: Derek Cianfrance Gets Pulled Apart
An unbalanced dual narrative plays out in Derek Cianfrance’s (“Blue Valentine”) unsteady attempt to extract universal truths about unintended legacies passed down from father to son.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
03-25-2013 |
Reviews
Wickedly Adequate: Sam Raimi Makes Lemonade From Lemons
Coming nowhere near the level of dynamic storytelling of the original 1939 “Wizard of Oz” – are you surprised? - Sam Raimi’s prequel movie features enough charms to mitigate an ongoing draught of G and PG-rated family flicks.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
03-04-2013 |
Reviews
Downed Submarine: Cold War Picture Sinks in the Deep
The cinematic offenses committed by the filmmakers of “Phantom” are varied and many.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-25-2013 |
Reviews
Losing to Japan: Kiarostami Falters
...no filmmaker is above making errors of judgment. Kiarostami makes a big one.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-18-2013 |
Reviews
Breaking Soap — Southern Gothic Teen Romance Goes Camp
An imaginative adolescent gothic romance, “Beautiful Creatures” arrives with considerably more camp and intellectual humor than the “Twilight” franchise to which “Creatures” is sure to be compared.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-11-2013 |
Reviews
Agit-Flop: Pablo Larrain’s Pinochet Trilogy Loses Substance
Gael Garcia Bernal’s television adman-turned-political-commercial-creator Rene Saavedra is such an ethically ambiguous and passive protagonist that “No” falls flat as a piece of wannabe agitprop cinema.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-11-2013 |
Reviews
Tags: No
Vindicating Charlie Sheen: It Still Hasn’t Happened
Roman Coppola’s '70s-era scattershot comic apologia for Charlie Sheen’s sins of womanizing and drug abuse has a train-wreck appeal that makes it moderately interesting to look at —i.e., a snapshot of our times as seen through a retro view.
City Pulse |
By Cole Smithey |
02-11-2013 |
Reviews
Bumpy Road Movie: Melissa McCarthy Packs a Throat-Punch
2013 is Melissa McCarthy’s year. The plus-size actress who blew up big laughs in “Bridesmaids” is making major comic waves with at least three features tailored to her fast-twitch style of physical humor this year.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-05-2013 |
Reviews
Soderbergh’s Swan Song Big Pharma as the Ultimate MacGuffin
Steven Soderbergh’s last feature before his retirement from the movies (he'll still do theater and TV) is a milestone psychological thriller comparable to Hitchcock’s best work.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
02-04-2013 |
Reviews
