J. C. Chandor's "Margin Call'

Panic on the Street: Hollywood tackles the Crash of '08

J. C. Chandor's Margin Call depicts the financial meltdown of 2008 from inside the executive suites of a company that resembles Lehman Brothers but, unlike its prototype, aims to survive. Chandor's film is that rare serious attempt to put a human face on an economic crisis. But its characters, however vivid, are far less appealing than the Corleones of The Godfather, and also far more dangerous.

Robert Zaller

Dec 13, 2011 · Articles · 7 minute read

Lars von Trier's "Melancholia' (1st review)

Imagining the unimaginable

Unlike most films about the end of the world, Lars von Trier's haunting and disturbing Melancholia provides a much more oppressively vivid sense of what the apocalypse might actually feel like.

Jake Blumgart

Dec 13, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Alexander Payne's "The Descendants'

Dynasty, Hawaiian Style

Alexander Payne is the best satirist of the current American film generation, and The Descendants is his most ambitious film yet. But his mordant wit too often exposes a vein of sentiment. He needs to decide where his art wants to go. The Descendants. A film directed by Alexander Payne. For Philadelphia area show times, click here.

Robert Zaller

Dec 10, 2011 · Articles · 6 minute read

Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar'

Edgar and Clyde: An unlikely love story

Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar Hoover is less the fearsome FBI director who created the template for the modern security state than a closet homosexual whose prurience about others' private lives masked his concealment of his own— above all from himself.

Robert Zaller

Nov 29, 2011 · Articles · 8 minute read

"Take Shelter': Prophecy vs. lunacy (1st review)

Sleepwalking toward Armageddon

In Take Shelter, a young worker and husband in central Ohio can't decide whether the apocalyptic visions that torment him are the mark of a prophet or a madman. Director Jeff Nichols provides no easy answers, but he does make us think hard about where all of us are at this moment.

Robert Zaller

Nov 08, 2011 · Articles · 8 minute read

George Clooney's "Ides of March' (2nd review)

Is there a Republican in the house?

The Ides of March is a thriller without guns or foreign spies; its drama concerns the intimate actions and reactions of individuals making choices in the high-stakes milieu of presidential politics.

Judy Weightman

Oct 15, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

George Clooney's "Ides of March' (1st review)

Better you should watch re-runs of ‘The West Wing'

Power corrupts? Politicians must compromise? Interns put out? What else is new? George Clooney's purportedly very serious film about an American presidential election is in fact clueless about how politics really work.

Jake Blumgart

Oct 15, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion'

Revenge of the bats

Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, a film about a super-deadly virus on the loose, is a transparent parable of the War on Terror in which only dedicated scientists and stern-jawed military types can save the nation and the world. Really, with heroes like these, can't we just bring back the Terminator?

Robert Zaller

Oct 01, 2011 · Articles · 6 minute read

"Moneyball' and male values

Brad Pitt's new American male hero

Moneyball is a new twist on a classic American movie plot: Here, a rugged, aggressive and somewhat misogynistic man learns the value of two things money can't buy: patience and thought. If such a transformation can happen to a Brad Pitt character, is there hope for our macho country?

Madeline Schaefer

Oct 01, 2011 · Articles · 2 minute read

"Drive': Beyond casual violence

A protagonist who's seen too many movies

The hero of Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive is a psychopath, but we don't discover that until we've grown to empathize with him. That's what sets it above the usual run of gangster/action films.

Jake Blumgart

Sep 20, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read