AltWeeklies Wire
Mother Monster: Freaky Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Frightening
Guillermo del Toro — the director of such minor masterpieces as “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” — weakens his sphere of influence by producing a sorely underdeveloped horror movie that manufactures scares from the crudest of tropes.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
01-15-2013 |
Reviews
Oh the Agony They Don’t Call it “Les Mis” for Nothing
Audiences new to Boubil & Schoenberg’s stage musical — based on Victor Hugo’s novel of historical fiction — may be surprised to discover the wooly narrative isn’t as compelling as they imagined it might be.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
12-13-2012 |
Reviews
Collateral Damage: Kathryn Bigelow Tows the Party Line, Mostly
Kathryn Bigelow’s cinematic version of the U.S. military’s absurdly protracted ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden is not what you would expect.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
12-13-2012 |
Reviews
Apatow’s Complaint: Midlife Crisis is a Bundle of Laughs
Three years is too long to go without a Judd Apatow comedy. That’s how long it’s been since the comic genius of American cinema gave us his last written-and-directed movie (“Funny People”).
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
12-13-2012 |
Reviews
Limits of Respect: Massaging FDR Pays Modest Dividends
If only we could see Bill Murray’s FDR hanging out with Daniel Day Lewis’s Lincoln, then there might be…well, another mediocre life-slice movie about dead presidents.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
12-03-2012 |
Reviews
Bankers’ Penalty Andrew Dominik’s One-Movie Revolution Comes Calling
One of the ten best films of 2012, Andrew Dominik’s cold-blooded satire of American corporate-political-capitalism cuts through its subject like a freshly sharpened guillotine blade.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
11-26-2012 |
Reviews
Resizing Tolstoy: Tom Stoppard’s Visible Magic Shines
Resizing Tolstoy
Tom Stoppard’s Visible Magic Shines
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
11-12-2012 |
Reviews
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
