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The Road Least Traveled
This might be one way to describe Gerry: it leans into a curve. By turns daunting and absorbing, the film is about movement that seems hopeless
Sights
A Hero Who Hurts
Leather, zippers and boots. Like a lot of movies derived from comic books, Daredevil features a superhero who suits up as if for S&M
A Matter of Life and Death, Not to Mention Privilege
It's a bad sign when the supposedly ace investigative reporter is several steps behind the audience in figuring out the plot
Cross-Cultural Delight
The Guru explores the confluence of porn movies and musicals, then adds another combinatory layer: cross-cultural desire
Lost Lessons
Though Gangs of New York makes mention of the War repeatedly, the causes remain relatively irrelevant to these northern urban gangs, so focused on their immediate struggles, their desire to wipe each other out forever
Life In and Of the Moment
The women subjects of The Hours are, on one hand, unfathomable prisms of sentiment and sensation, rendered in brilliant performances. But the women are also functions of a coherent narrative, made comprehensible as embodiments of historical patter
Under Water and Holding Breath
Lockdown opens with a swimmer slicing through the water. An unlikely start for a movie about prison, the image is also acutely appropriate, as the film tracks one man's descent into the disturbing waters of the U.S. penal system
A Potent Allegory
In The Quiet American, the story Fowler tells is full of nostalgia and regret, imperialism and aggression. Perhaps most alarmingly, Phillip Noyce's film, based on Graham Greene's 1955 novel, is utterly timely, right now
Surface vs. Depth
Some viewers have worried that Menno Meyjes' Max ''humanizes'' Adolph Hitler. But the film is less concerned with making him sympathetic, or even very specific, than it is in using him to illustrate a series of ideas
The Overworked AmeriSim
What does it say about us, as a culture, that after a long day of work we are sitting down at our home computers and playing computer characters that are sitting down at their computers?
Southern Tragedies
Two documentaries, which happen to air on PBS two days apart, capture our society's simultaneous engagement and rejection of a legacy of racism
An Indictment of Cops’ Motives and Movies
Narc's most surprising aspect may be its sharp assessment of the ways that poverty, violence and racism continue to shape urban cop movies (not to mention life outside movies)
Return of the Angry Cop
The Shield doesn't just present cruel or monstrous action. It also points out why and how such attitudes evolve, and without condoning them, makes bigotry and fear visible, more normal than exceptional
Peering In On Internal Anguish
His attenuation -- Szpilman's diminished view, his simultaneous dread of seeing and need to see, his embodiment of an uncanny sort of ''negative space'' -- is The Pianist's most astounding effect
A Truth as Elusive as Leo
In Catch Me If You Can, The circles of truth and image are wholly beguiling