San Antonio Current | Movies+TV | Reviews | AAN.org

Ozploitation in the Outbacknew

Does anyone really think of Mel Gibson as being Australian at this point, or is he just a talented and offensive Hollywood madman with extremely bad taste?

San Antonio Current | Mark Jones | 06-29-2011 | Reviews

Pretentiousness the True Leading Role in The Art of Getting Bynew

While one could argue about where the line between brilliance and bullshit starts to blur with films like Richard Linklater’s 2001 mindbender Waking Life, Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 mystical sci-fi drama The Fountain, or anything from the conceptual mind of director Terrence Malick, the creative weight they carry should be considered when deciding whether you ultimately deem the work profound or phony.

San Antonio Current | Steven G. Kellman | 06-20-2011 | Reviews

A Scorching Odyssey of Death and Rebirthnew

The opening sequence in Incendies is a stunning piece of poetic filmmaking: A desert in the Middle East framed in the window of a barracks where a dozen young Muslim conscripts readied for combat are having their heads shaved. Radiohead’s haunting “You and Whose Army?” quietly plays as the camera zooms in on a child soldier who refuses to blink.

San Antonio Current | Gregg Barrios | 06-20-2011 | Reviews

J.J. Abrams Aims High With Super 8, and Nearly Arrivesnew

As much as filmmaker J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) would have liked for his nostalgic sci-fi Super 8 to convey as much enchantment as a Steven Spielberg-directed masterpiece like E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it doesn’t quite reach that ambitious goal.

San Antonio Current | Kiko Martinez | 06-20-2011 | Reviews

Woody Allen Tries Paris, and It Tastes goodnew

Allen revisits the droll premise of A Twenties Memory with Midnight in Paris, an unremittingly delightful demonstration that the past is never past or even what we think it was.

San Antonio Current | Steven Kellman | 06-09-2011 | Reviews

Tags: Woody Allen, Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris

"Battle: Los Angeles" Review Causes a Commenting Stirnew

Why are hostile aliens from outer space so attracted to Los Angeles? They blew the fuck out of California in last year’s Skyline, and in Battle: Los Angeles we really don’t even get a reason for their invasion (it may have something to do with water).

San Antonio Current | Michael Gallucci | 03-29-2011 | Reviews

Tags: Jonathan Liebesman, Battle: Los Angeles

Critic's Diss: "The Lincoln Lawyer"new

As far as courtroom dramas are concerned, you’d be hard-pressed to find something as generic as 'The Lincoln Lawyer.'

San Antonio Current | Kiko Martinez | 03-25-2011 | Reviews

'Casino Jack' and the Art of the Stealnew

Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff’s biggest crime was getting caught.

San Antonio Current | Enrique Lopetegui | 03-25-2011 | Reviews

Tags: Casino Jack, George Hickenlooper

Critic's Pick: 'White Material'new

Dressed in a light pink frock and standing on a dusty road in an unnamed African country, Maria Vial, the central character in the French art-house film White Material, appears spellbound by the changes happening in a world she once thought of as her home.

San Antonio Current | Kiko Martinez | 03-15-2011 | Reviews

Tags: Claire Denis, White Material, Christopher Lambert, Isaach De Bankolé, Isabelle Huppert, Marie N’Diaye

Critic's Pick: Cedar Rapidsnew

In Cedar Rapids, small-town insurance salesman Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is the kind of hopeless buffoon you wouldn’t mind getting to know. His rite of passage comes when he is sent to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to represent his company at an insurance convention, a sizeable step for Tim, who has never left his own backyard.

San Antonio Current | Kiko Martinez | 03-04-2011 | Reviews

Tags: Miguel Arteta, Films, Cedar Rapids

Sofia Coppola's 'Somewhere' Authentic and Contemporarynew

Somewhere’s central character reads as sensitive — maybe even simple — and despite a career of steady gigs, 37-year-old actor Stephen Dorff is somehow unfamiliar enough to slip into the character of Marco.

San Antonio Current | Ashley Lindstrom | 02-28-2011 | Reviews