Email Author Karina Longworth

Awards

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  Film reviews

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club, published February 5, 2010

  "Sundance's Rebel Yell"

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2010 Stories by Karina Longworth

• Sofia Coppola's Journey From Party Girl to Oscar Winner

  published December 23, 2010

  Sofia Coppola had her 21st birthday party at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles — a fact she had forgotten until Phil Pavel, manager of... More >>

• "Enter the Void" Is Like Hallucinating Without Drugs

  published December 2, 2010

  A very, very loose and highly symbolic adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void is both a... More >>

• "Burlesque" Rehashes Yesterday's Musicals and Squanders Its Hottest Asset: Xtina

  published November 25, 2010

  Programmatic by design, Burlesque flattens singer Christina Aguilera's inherent thorny appeal — the persona that's at once... More >>

• "Morning Glory" Puts Rachel McAdams to Work in Loveless Marriage With Her Job

  published November 11, 2010

  In the climax of Morning Glory, Rachel McAdams is dressed in the kind of cocktail dress a screen heroine wears when a slow-building love... More >>

• Zach Steals Another Buddy Comedy in "Due Date"

  published November 4, 2010

  In Due Date, a skinny, scowly, and dryly self-referential Robert Downey Jr. meets a chubby, beardy, quasi-autistic Zach Galifianakis... More >>

• "Buried" Features Ryan Reynolds and an Oddly Powerful Cell Phone

  published October 7, 2010

  Paul (Ryan Reynolds), an American truck driver for a KBR-type contractor in Iraq, is captured in an insurgent attack and wakes up buried in a... More >>

• "Life as We Know It" Promises Some Woman's Perfect, Reality-less Dream

  published October 7, 2010

  Set up on a blind date by their married best friends, Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) show each other the worst of... More >>

• "Going the Distance" Won't Make You Root for This Long-Distance Love

  published September 2, 2010

  "What really matters is what you like, not what you are like," says John Cusack in High Fidelity, a very good romantic comedy about a... More >>

• "Machete" Is LOL Funny, Deadly Boring

  published September 2, 2010

  Things you should know going in: Mexicans like hydraulics in their cars, and white people assume all Mexicans are janitors or gardeners.... More >>

• "The Switch" Review: Attractive Female Seeks Attractive Sperm Donor in Attractive Comedy

  published August 19, 2010

  A loose adaptation of a Jeffrey Eugenides story called "Baster," The Switch stars Jennifer Aniston as Kassie, who, having failed to find... More >>

• "Orlando" Review: Tilda Swinton Pulls Off a Complicated Feat of Drag From 1993

  published August 12, 2010

  In Sally Potter's 1993 Marxist-punk-tinged Virginia Woolf adaptation, Tilda Swinton plays the titular British lord blessed with eternal youth... More >>

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  "Eat Pray Love" Review: You May Cry, But It May Not Be Worth It

  published August 12, 2010

  Lusciously shot by Oscar winner Robert Richardson (The Aviator, JFK), Eat Pray Love delivers a sensory overload as intense as... More >>

• "South of the Border" Movie Review: Oliver Stone Teams Up With His Presidential Pals

  published July 22, 2010

  So one-sided that it nearly validates what the right says about Hollywood's liberal crusaders, Oliver Stone's essay/lecture/travelogue South... More >>

• Angelina Jolie's Contradictions Buoy the Otherwise Rote "Salt"

  published July 22, 2010

  Salt, a spy flick rewritten for Angelina Jolie after Tom Cruise dropped out, has been publicized as the cinematic equivalent of the 19th... More >>

• "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" Strains to Convince That its Lascivious Pleasures Have Historical Import

  published July 8, 2010

  Coco Chanel. Igor Stravinsky. Two iconoclasts whose contributions to their respective artistic fields left an indelible mark on the 20th... More >>

• "Robin Hood" Rails Against the Tax-and-Spend Nottingham Elite

  published May 13, 2010

  Is it an accident that Ridley Scott's Robin Hood plays like a rousing love letter to the tea party movement? It's certainly something of... More >>

• "Letters to Juliet" No Swooning Fantasy

  published May 13, 2010

  Blond and spineless, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has a secure fact-checking job and is engaged to Victor (Gael García Bernal), a hunky... More >>

• "Kick-Ass" a Superhero Flick for the YouTube Age

  published April 15, 2010

  Kick-Ass sets itself up as an unadulterated exposé of the teenaged mind. Tired of being mugged by high school thugs in a... More >>

• "The Runaways" Is a Rocking Movie Worth Taking Seriously

  published April 8, 2010

  There's an obvious stunt element to the casting of The Runaways: a punked-up, barely legal Kristen Stewart and a still underage, barely... More >>

• "Date Night" Tries to Fight Mundane Marriage With Mundane Movie

  published April 8, 2010

  "We are not these people! We are a boring couple from New Jersey!" complains Claire Foster (Tina Fey) to her husband, Phil (Steve Carell), in... More >>

• Cop Out Is Kevin Smith's Latest Cliché-Filled Movie-Trivia Comedy

  published February 25, 2010

  Cop Out establishes its movie lineage right away, with a slow-motion toe-to-head tilt up, set to the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep 'Til... More >>

• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

  published February 11, 2010

  In Pretty Woman, director Garry Marshall's personal cinematic high score, the opening credits close (and the closing credits open) with... More >>