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

John Madden's "The Debt' (2nd review)

Truth, lies, cinema: An Israeli paradox

In John Madden's The Debt, an Israeli commando team decides to fudge the botched kidnapping of a notorious Nazi war criminal as a killing. “What price truth?” is the question posed. But, beneath the surface of an action thriller lurk even darker and more existential issues.

Robert Zaller

Sep 13, 2011 · Articles · 7 minute read

"What Alice Knew': The hunt for Jack the Ripper

Sex and the 19th-Century city

The James siblings— Henry, William, Alice— pursue Jack the Ripper through late Victorian London in a witty intellectual thriller that offers some uncomfortable truths about sex, violence and the city along the way. What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper. By Paula Marantz Cohen. Sourcebooks, 2010. 341 pages; paperback, $14.95. www.amazon.com.

Robert Zaller

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Dorothy Parker beneath the surface

All that wit, all that pain

The more I blabbed about Dorothy Parker's wit, the more I realized that I knew very little about her life before and after the Algonquin Round Table. Was I ever in for some biographical surprises.

Patrick D. Hazard

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

"The Help' and "The Debt': Jessica Chastain's moment

Great teeth, great hair, and, well, you know the rest

Jessica Chastain has miles to go to match the force of Helen Mirren's mature persona. Until then, here's an actress beginning to stretch herself in two good movies aimed at very different audiences. The Help. A film written and directed by Tate Taylor, from the novel by Kathryn Stockett. For Philadelphia area showtimes, click here.

Reed Stevens

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Rowan Joffé's remake of "Brighton Rock'

Catholics without Catholicism

Graham Greene's chilling 1938 novel, Brighton Rock, hinges on the passionate Catholicism of a cruelly violent teen gangster and his easily manipulated girlfriend. Without that powerful religious underpinning, the new film adaptation doesn't make much sense.

Jake Blumgart

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

"The Help': Racism, or just plain meanness? (1st review)

Sugarcoated segregation

Does The Help resurrect shameful stereotypes or provide worthy human and historical perspective in its portrayal of black maids in 1960s Mississippi? Tate Taylor makes it too easy to detach ourselves from the real problem.

Alaina Johns

Sep 03, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read