Film
Killing Them Softly: Cogan’s Bluff
When it’s not bashing America, this crime thriller is pretty good.KRISTIAN LIN
Andrew Dominik is at home among thieves and killers. The New Zealander has made three films, and they’ve all been crime thrillers: the terrifying 2001 Australian entry Chopper, followed by the gorgeous and lethally dull 2007 ...
Anna Karenina Under the Lights
In this movie, Tolstoy’s heroine hits the stage. The stage hits back.KRISTIAN LIN
Wow, this is spooky. When I was in college, I wrote a paper on Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. It was about the novel’s relationship to the stage — if my memory serves me, I wrote about how the book’s scenes at the theater...
Film Shorts
KRISTIAN LINOPENING: Rise of the Guardians (PG) This animated adaptation of William Joyce’s book features Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny (voiced by Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Isla Fisher, and Hugh Jackman) ...
Silver Linings: Soaring Eagles
This comedy about mental illness and football cruises into the end zone.KRISTIAN LIN
For whatever reason, this is a banner year for movies about mental illness set in Pennsylvania. We still have the excellent Pittsburgh teen flick The Perks of Being a Wallflower playing, and now from the other end of the state ...
Life of Pi: Cat Away
An improbable survival story on the ocean makes for an Ang Lee masterpiece.KRISTIAN LIN
Remember when I wrote about “unfilmable” novels in my review of Cloud Atlas a few weeks ago? Well, Yann Martell’s Life of Pi was supposed to be unfilmable, too — a largely plotless story filled with the philosophical po...
Film Shorts
KRISTIAN LINOPENING: A Royal Affair (R) Based on 18th-century Danish history, Nikolaj Arcel’s drama is about a German doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) and an English-born queen (Alicia Vikander) who push her insane husband King Christian VII (Mik...
Lincoln: Long Live the Union
Daniel Day-Lewis overshadows Steven Spielberg’s political drama.KRISTIAN LIN
Here we are in 2012, and Steven Spielberg is still surprising me. Because Lincoln has been released one week after a presidential election, everyone is inevitably dissecting his movie for political content and its relevance to ...
Sessions: The 36-Year-Old Virgin
John Hawkes takes flight and leaves the rest of this disability drama behind.KRISTIAN LIN
You can get a double dose of John Hawkes this week. The 53-year-old character actor was in Fort Worth last weekend to be feted by the Lone Star International Film Festival. Now he has both a small role in Lincoln (see above rev...
Film Shorts
KRISTIAN LINOPENING: This Must Be the Place (NR) Sean Penn stars in this dramedy by Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo) about a retired rock star who returns to his native America to track down the Nazi officer who humiliated his late father decade...
Skyfall: The Divine Ms. M
James Bond is back, but his boss makes this better than ever.KRISTIAN LIN
One thing the James Bond series has been known for is the “Bond girls,” those hot women of various ethnicities and varying degrees of usefulness in a crisis whom 007 unfailingly takes to bed. The newest Bond movie, Skyfall,...