THE WATCHER
Spader keeps his focus strong, but can’t help seeming like a weakened Atlas trying to carry the weight of the…
Thiller
THE NINTH GATE
Pauline Kael said that “great movies are rarely perfect movies,” and this truism certainly applies to The Ninth Gate. Actress…
THE YAKUZA — CLASSIC FILM PICK
Robert Mitchum was in his stride when he made “The Yakuza,” doing a movie every year and making it look…
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN — CANNES 2011
Forced, stultifying, and artificial beyond belief, “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s off-key treatment of…
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
International espionage during the Cold War period of the early ‘70s, as practiced by British MI6 double agents, is one…
LA FEMME NIKITA
“La Femme Nikita” paved the way for Besson’s 1994 equally groundbreaking crime thriller “Leon: The Professional,” which introduced audiences to…
TRESPASS
Joel Schumacher continues on his career-long habit of hits and misses with a home invasion suspense thriller that signifies yet…
DRIVE — 2011
“Drive” is an impossibly glamorous and gritty film filled with nooks and crannies bursting with action goodness. Sam Peckinpah has…
CONTAGION
“Contagion’s” PG-13 rating predicts the film’s less than horrific nature (following an overpromising opening sequence). Director Steven Soderbergh inflects his…
SOURCE CODE
“Source Code” features two dynamic female characters who take the story in opposing directions. Vera Farmiga’s military scientist Colleen Goodwin…
UNKNOWN
How Liam Neeson went from being that rare thespian animal of a leading-man-character-actor to a full-on action star while still…
THE INTERPRETER
Much ballyhooed for its on-location filming in and around the United Nations building in Manhattan “The Interpreter” works better as…
BLACK SWAN — CLASSIC FILM PICK
Classic Cinema, Dance, FOUR STARS, Horror, LGBTQ, Reviews Blog, sex, Sexploitation, SHOCKTOBER!, Thiller, Video Essay, Women's Cinema
“Black Swan” comes at a troubled economic time in America when culture has been relegated to the same dust bins…
THE AMERICAN
FIVE STARS, Literary Adaptation, Reviews Blog, sex, Spy Thriller, Thiller, Women Filmmakers, Women's Cinema
However clichéd you might imagine the hit man premise for “The American” to be, know that not only does it…
CHLOE
From the moment Chloe describes in detail her first alleged sexual encounter with David–which we objectively witness in flashback —…
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Danish Cinema, FOUR STARS, Literary Adaptation, Psychological Thriller, Punk, Reviews Blog, Thiller, Women's Cinema
The first film adaptation of the late Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson’s posthumously published “Millennium Trilogy,” “The Girl With the Dragon…
SHUTTER ISLAND
Shot in visually opulent “widescreen,” Scorsese draws on a variety of cinematic references for a psychosomatic puzzle of foreboding and…
THE GHOST WRITER
It’s a big deal when Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski release mystery thrillers in the same week. Coincidentally, “Shutter Island”…
A PERFECT GETAWAY
It’s not often that a filmmaker attempts to cheat their audience in the way that David Twohy does with impunity.…
STATE OF PLAY
A theme ostensibly about the ongoing privatization of America’s industrial military complex (prisons included) gets palmed into a story about…
COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA
