AltWeeklies Wire
'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus': City Paper Grade B+new
The narrative is a showy gloss on the Faust legend with Tom Waits as a carny-huckster Beelzebub and Christopher Plummer as a monk-turned-immortal showman, and its reliance on oft-told tales and fairy tale archetypes is welcome given how the narrative seems to unravel rather than unfold.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
01-12-2010 |
Reviews
The Epic, Overstuffed 'Inglourious Basterds' is WWII Through a Tarantino Lensnew
Tarantino is more interested in tailoring the WWII movie to fit his preoccupations than the other way around. He even manages to satisfy his foot fetish by having an errant high heel play a pivotal role in the climactic sequence.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
08-25-2009 |
Reviews
'Bruno' Fails to Detonate With the Force of its Predecessornew
The movie's provocations connect only fitfully, and despite its comparatively strong narrative, it feels less of a piece than Borat, and more like an overlong episode of Sacha Baron Cohen's TV show.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
07-14-2009 |
Reviews
Natural Performances Save Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida and Sam Mendes from Themselvesnew
Its opening scene, a deadpan discussion of "vaginal flavors" during oral sex, threatens 90 minutes of the sort of self-satisfied wise-assery that too often intrudes on Dave Eggers' fiction. But Away We Go soon settles into a less strident pace, driven less by its authors' whims than by the casual airs of its leads.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
06-16-2009 |
Reviews
Pixar's 'Up' Starts out Strong but Falls Flatnew
Up's striking opening sequence is a tremendous passage, one that the rest of the movie, perhaps not surprisingly, fails to live up to.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
06-02-2009 |
Reviews
'Sunshine Cleaning' Is Too Neatnew
Mystifyingly buzzed-about at Sundance 2008, Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning is a serviceable but none-too-distinct take on the second-chance story. Also reviewed: The Edge of Love.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
03-24-2009 |
Reviews
Daydream Believer: 'Waltz With Bashir'new
Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman reconstructs a tragedy using animations and his own experiences as a grunt soldier.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
01-27-2009 |
Reviews
'Benjamin Button' Looks Cool, but Is That Reason Enough to Care?new
Unfortunately, Benjamin's aging process isn't the only thing the movie gets backward. Despite all the care lavished on its execution, it never manages to be about anything more than its own gimmickry.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
12-30-2008 |
Reviews
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman Gets His Chance in the Director's Chairnew
The movies made from Kaufman's scripts often suffer from a certain airlessness, plunging deeper and deeper into a world with no center. Synecdoche, which takes its name from a literary device in which a part is substituted for the whole, takes that centerlessness as its central theme.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
11-11-2008 |
Reviews
'The Lucky Ones' and 'Flow': Water Worldsnew
Another flick plays it safe with the Iraq war, while the emerging global water crisis offers real scares.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-29-2008 |
Reviews
The Coen Brothers Switch It Up for Their 'No Country' Follow-upnew
At first blush, Joel and Ethan Coen's high-grade farce Burn After Reading feels like an abrupt, if not unwelcome, about-face from the moral sobriety of No Country for Old Men.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-16-2008 |
Reviews
Life Goes On 'I Served the King of England'new
In many ways, Menzel's latest serves as a bookend to that early masterpiece, Closely Watched Trains, beginning with another wide-eyed youth on another train platform, his personal desires consuming his entire attention as the Nazis march in just offscreen.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
09-09-2008 |
Reviews
Darby Crash Gets a Biopic as Ragged as He Wasnew
What We Do is Secret is told in a combination of narrative and faux-doc pieces, which becomes something of a patchwork, with the talking-head segments a jarring shift from the gritty punk milieu.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
09-02-2008 |
Reviews
Steve Coogan Suffers the Slings and Arrows of Being a Dopey Shakespeare Hopefulnew
Coogan spends the film in a tug-of-war with the script; he's forced into some blatantly obvious humor, from the broad commercial parodies to the endless mangling of his character's consonant-heavy name. But he also maximizes the thinly veiled rage burbling under Marschz's veneer of undying optimism.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Shaun Brady |
08-26-2008 |
Reviews
Blacklisted Scribe Dalton Trumbo Finds His Way onto the Big Screennew
Adapting Christopher Trumbo's stage play, Peter Askin's Trumbo pays tribute to blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in his own words — but not the words you'd expect.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
08-19-2008 |
Reviews
