AltWeeklies Wire
Getting to Know Our Captors: Errol Morris Connects the Pictures to Their Takers
Documentarian Errol Morris effectively takes the viewer inside the atmosphere of psychological and physical abuse doled out by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib by connecting the hundreds of damning photos taken by soldiers to their context.
Baby Madness: It's All in the Delivery
Baby madness happily invades the brain of Philadelphia bachelorette and thriving businesswoman Kate Holbrook (gleefully played by Tina Fey) who, at the ripe age of 37, hires a surrogate mom to birth her sperm bank assisted baby.
Tags: Baby Mama, Michael McCullers
American Cinema Isn't All About Bush Anymore
Full-frontal male nudity achieves de rigueur R-rated status in American cinema thanks to the shameless efforts of Judd Apatow's gang of cutting-edge writers and directors that have delivered movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Superbad.
David Ayer's 'Harsh Times' Get Harsher
A combination of implausible plot-points, and the miscasting of television's Hugh Laurie as Internal Affairs chief Captain Biggs, hampers a convoluted crime thriller that is nonetheless entertaining for its grotesque action sequences.
Tags: David Ayer, Street Kings
Empathy for the Stones
Martin Scorsese returns to the rock 'n' roll concert documentary genre that he helped develop in 1978 with The Last Waltz, to capture an energized performance by The Rolling Stones at New York's Beacon Theater in the fall of 2006.
Tags: Martin Scorsese, Shine a Light
'Boys Don't Cry' Director Returns With Soldiers' Untold Story
Co-writer and director Kimberly Peirce returns after her impressive 1999 drama Boys Don't Cry with an equally empathetic film centered around the U.S. military's current backdoor-draft, responsible for forcing 81,000 soldiers back into war after multiple tours of duty.
Tags: Kimberly Peirce, Stop-Loss
Gettin' Jiggy Wid It: International B-Boy Battle Buzzes Onscreen
The mid '80s urban dance form of breakdancing is alive and well in director Benson Lee's joyful celebration of the ingenuity and energy expressed by international "B-boy" dance crews competing in Braunschweig, Germany at the 2005 "Battle of the Year."
Tags: Benson Lee, Planet B-Boy
More Animated: Dr. Seuss Gets a Spotless Facelift
The best-loved 1954 children's book by Ted Geisel (AKA Dr. Seuss) gets an appropriately colorful and vibrant film treatment with the aid of beautiful animation and expressive vocal performances.
Two Serial Killers Walk Into a Home
Michael Haneke's remake of his own movie is no joke.
Tags: Funny Games, Michael Haneke
A Forgotten Heist Gets a Welcome Reminder
The Bank Job is a good old-fashioned bank heist movie that's based on a 1971 London robbery in which a Lloyds Bank vault was emptied while the city slept.
Tags: Roger Donaldson, The Bank Job
Will Farrell Takes Up Old School Basketball
Farrell loiters in the comfort of his signature punch-drunk delivery of outrageous lines and sight gags in a '70s era parody that extends the funk vibe of Judd Apatow's summer comedy Superbad.
Tags: Kent Alterman, Semi-Pro
The Political Thriller Returns With a Vengeance
Director Pete Travis has turned debut screenwriter Barry Levy's Rashomon-inspired script, about an assassination attempt against a U.S. president on a visit to Salamanca into a dizzyingly complex puzzle that sits comfortably next to such great political thrillers as In the Line of Fire.
Tags: Pete Travis, Vantage Point
Philippa Gregory's Novel Gets Shackled
Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson make a handsome, if redundantly costumed, pair of 16th century English sisters in this half-hearted period drama set between King Henry VIII's noble court and his volatile bedroom.
V-Day Movie Shoots a Quiver of Arrows
For a Valentine's Day romantic comedy Definitely, Maybe hits all the right notes of commitment, honesty and maturity that go into a young father's explanation to his daughter about the women he dated before she was conceived.
Tags: Adam Brooks, Definitely, Maybe
Laughing Abstract: Farrell and Gleeson Get Dark in Inky Black Comedy
“In Bruges” (pronounced ‘brooj’) is a highly unique and stylized black comedy that makes good on its ostensibly simple hitmen/boss narrative trope.
Tags: In Bruges, Martin McDonagh
