"War Horse': Animals as friends

A four-legged friend goes to war

In northern California, where I live, War Horse touched a special chord. Many of our families depended on horses not so long ago, and we learned to respect them.

John L. Erlich

Jan 17, 2012 · Articles · 2 minute read

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' (3rd review)

Seduced (by James Bond) and abandoned

The misunderstood Tinker, Tailor is certainly a tale of a stagnant elite obsessed by its declining international prestige. But it's also about the toll of a profession that we spy fans— and spies themselves— try to imbue with a glamour that quickly turns to dross in the sunlight.

Jake Blumgart

Jan 10, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

Lars von Trier's "Melancholia' (2nd review)

GÓ¶tterdÓ¤mmerung, Danish style

In Lars Von Trier's quasi-operatic Melancholia, a wedding party by way of Bergman and Woody Allen gives way to a meditation on the end of the world, courtesy of an approaching rogue planet. As a disaster film, it's unclassifiable, but it does invite us to ponder our destructive social and psychological mores.

Robert Zaller

Jan 03, 2012 · Articles · 8 minute read

Alfredson's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' (1st review)

Lost in the Cold War

Am I unreasonable to expect a movie to make sense without significant advance preparation on my part?

Judy Weightman

Dec 31, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

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