One Direction: This Is Us
Friends thought I was joking when I said I wanted to see this film. I am not a Directioner. I’m a middle-aged man. For all practical purposes, those are opposites. I wanted to see it, though, for the...
View ArticleClosed Circuit
The UK drama Closed Circuit aims to be a thinking person’s thriller, a tale of government conspiracy that hits scarily close to home. In reality, it never gets more thrilling or chilling than its first...
View ArticleThe Spectacular Now
James Ponsoldt has a drinking problem. The problem is that he apparently can’t stop making movies about drinking. Since 2006, he’s directed the following — and only the following: Off the Black, about...
View ArticleIn a World...
In a world … where hokey movie trailers are invariably narrated by mellifluous male voices, one woman dares to speak the hokiest of all phrases. In a world … where attractive comic actresses don’t find...
View ArticleThe Family
Obviously Robert De Niro was abducted by aliens, and the fellow we’ve watched sleepwalk through nearly 20 years of shlock is a pod person. A pod person with a terrible agent and no earthly idea how to...
View ArticleInsidious: Chapter 2
In 2011, director James Wan scored a surprise hit with Insidious, a PG-13 haunting movie that delivered the scares. Its strong grosses and reviews severed Wan and his writing partner, Leigh Whannell,...
View ArticleThe Real Vermont Star of Captain Phillips Is Still at the Helm
How does the real Captain Phillips rate the movie version of his private pirate drama? “It was worse living it than watching it,” the 58-year-old Underhill resident said matter-of-factly last Wednesday...
View ArticleCaptain Phillips
Come Oscar time, people are going to argue about Captain Phillips nearly as much as they argued about Zero Dark Thirty last year. Pundits will ask: How accurate is the fact-based drama in depicting the...
View ArticleVermont International Film Festival Brings Shock Docs, Illicit Disney Drama...
The official themes of the Vermont International Film Festival, which starts this Friday, are Identity, Artists in Action, Sport & Film, Food & Film and Water. But, as always, we’ve made up our...
View ArticleA Film Archivist and Preservationist Shows Us Our Past to Inform Our Future
Rick Prelinger is many things: an archivist, preservationist and maker of films; an advocate for free speech and for revising America’s copyright laws; a public speaker; and even, as the Atlantic has...
View ArticleGravity
In the course of his fabulous new film, Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón achieves countless technical marvels. But the effect that impressed me most was in the opening moments, where he makes a group of...
View ArticleA Hijacking
“Just business.” Those are the words that the leader of a band of Somali pirates speaks to reassure Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) in the fact-based film of that title in wide release this Friday (see my...
View ArticleA Vermonter's Documentary Chronicles Labor Unrest in Wisconsin
It was 2011, and Vermonter Sam Mayfield had only packed for a four-day stay when independent news outlet the UpTake hired her to shoot footage of the tumultuous scene at the Wisconsin State Capitol...
View ArticleFrances Ha
Watching Frances Ha, it hit me: Greta Gerwig is the anti-Zooey. Both actresses are quirky, sweet, funny and attractive, but there’s a significant distinction. Deschanel has built a career as the poster...
View ArticleLaurence Anyways
You may not have heard of Xavier Dolan, but you should have. He’s a Québécois filmmaker who looks like the young Johnny Depp, and the first three movies he directed premiered at Cannes. His fourth won...
View ArticleShort Takes on Film: Sleepless in Burlington; Brattleboro Film Fest
Another Vermont International Film Festival has drawn to a close — and it was a good one, with packed screenings for movies such as The Act of Killing, Escape From Tomorrow and Frances Ha. Apparently...
View ArticleThe Fifth Estate
“I do not believe that this film is a good film.” — Julian Assange He may be creepy. He may look like he escaped from a Harry Potter novel. But he’s right. If you’ve been in a coma for the past half...
View ArticleCarrie
When I was in middle school, Brian De Palma’s Carrie popped up on TV. My contemporaries were too young to have seen the 1976 horror flick in theaters, and home video was still rare, so the broadcast...
View ArticlePianist-Composer Bob Merrill Gives Voice to Silent Movies
There’s never been a better time to listen to movies than the present. Not only do most theaters offer incredibly realistic, 360-degree “sonic experiences” for their patrons, but many of us have sound...
View ArticleJackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
What’s wrong with this picture: Being John Malkovich. Adaptation. Where the Wild Things Are. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa? “One of these things is not like the others,” as they say on “Sesame Street.”...
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