cinefile

Wayne Wang’s twentieth motion picture—a story of sisterhood illustrated by the same duo of actresses, playing three generations of themselves in three eras: 1829, 1997, and 2011—is something of a flop. Continue reading »

Steven Soderbergh, arguably one of the more interesting (and certainly among the most prolific) of modern American directors, attempts to give the virus-outbreak film a new sheen, but give us nothing much worth talking about, and way too many name-actors doing the talking. Continue reading »

The new film by writer-director Andrew Niccol—as much a star vehicle for Justin Timberlake as it is another of the director’s attempts at melding thought-provoking sci-fi to a plausible concrete reality—is a silly, laughably poorly written piece of work. Continue reading »

Justin Kurzel’s début feature, a dramatization of Australia’s most notorious serial-murder crime spree, is exceptionally well-crafted but, at its height, ill-advisedly trades palpable suspense for torture-porn. Continue reading »

Michael House’s film is a handsomely produced and informative chronicle of the inner and outer life of Monsieur Hulot; an enjoyable appreciation of a man whose idiosyncrasies, it was once said, embody “everything that commercial cinema doesn’t have time or space for.” Continue reading »

Michael Shannon delivers yet another solid performance in Noah Buschel’s functionally flawed but visually arresting neo-noir. It first toured the festival circuit two years ago and is finally being issued on DVD locally. Continue reading »

This is a sports movie with more heart and laughs than actual sport, a blend of the tried-and-true high-school sports triumphalism template with the main components of Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Continue reading »

In a week where the country that is home to the Chicago School of Economics has had its credit rating downgraded for the first time ever, Ferguson’s film only proves more vital, more important than it was upon release a year ago. Continue reading »