AltWeeklies Wire
Spike Jonze's Her is dazzlingnew
Retro-futuristic romance with the most sincere of faces.
Tags: Spike Jonze, Her
Dallas Buyers Club is a drama of the AIDS crisisnew
As good as Matthew McConaughey is here — and this is the performance of his suddenly rising career — he is repeatedly upstaged by Jared Leto.
Tags: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Delivery Man is a grown-up comedy for Vince Vaughnnew
All of its unexpected merits are not meant to suggest that Delivery Man is great; hell, it's hard to definitively qualify it as good.
Tags: Vince Vaughn, Delivery Man
Fruitvale Station speaks to post-Trayvon Martin Americanew
It's a sad state of affairs when movies like Fruitvale Station have to show everyone what they should know by now: Black people are people, too.
Renoir the painter and Renoir the filmmakernew
Renoir, a ravishing and sensuous imagining of one summer late in the life of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, makes the great painter's work matter again by putting an aging man's passions into an emotional and historical context.
A Compelling Tale of NYC Graffiti Artists in Gimme the Lootnew
For his very low-budget debut, writer/director Andre Leon makes a spirited teen comedy with predominantly minority characters, which is damn near amazing in itself.
Tags: graffiti, Gimme the Loot
This year's Oscar shorts, in four programsnew
There's a strong crop of Animated Short Film nominees this year, and unusually, none of the nominees are CGI. In fact, there's a welcome return of old-school animation, with hand-drawn and stop-motion animation among the candidates.
Matt Damon's anti-fracking Promised Landnew
It's hard to achieve high-minded aims using this single-minded script, acting and filmmaking acumen.
David Chase's feature debut, the nostalgic Not Fade Awaynew
While The Sopranos creator still has trouble knowing how to end a story, he does know how to pen a love letter to rock 'n' roll.
Les Misérables reaches the screen in an extravagant visualizationnew
If you are one of the many fans of the popular Les Miz, you will find the cinematic version exciting and rewarding. Not a fan? You may remain unconvinced.
Django Unchainednew
Tarantino's new film, Django Unchained, is a pulp fantasy of the antebellum South in which a black man avenges slavery by killing a lot of white people.
The Year in Film 2012new
Was this the year of the doc? PLUS: 5 Top 10s; It came from the South; On the cutting room floor
Tags: 2012 in Movies
Surviving sobriety in Smashednew
A less naïve viewer (than myself) might readily see Smashed for what it is: a vehicle for an ambitious young talent to escape the straitjacket of typecasting. This is Mary Elizabeth Winstead's movie, and she's a charmer.
Silver Linings Playbook is more than a rom-comnew
The most surprising thing about Silver Linings Playbook is how relentlessly funny it is. The laughs arise with organic force, triggering that slightly out-of-control quality that manifests in genuine fits of hysteria.
Daniel Day-Lewis ends slavery in Lincolnnew
Steven Spielberg's Lincoln accomplishes the seemingly irreconcilable feat of humanizing Abraham Lincoln while preserving his mythology.
