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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2011 Stories by Karina Longworth

• "Garbo: The Spy" Follows a Master Manipulator Through His Nazi Infiltration

  published December 29, 2011

  Having barely escaped a bungled attempt to cross lines during the Spanish Civil War, Spanish man-of-mystery Juan Pujol offered his services as... More >>

• "My Week With Marilyn" Takes the Sex Out of Sex Symbol

  published November 24, 2011

  In the TV-movie-quality impersonation that is Simon Curtis' My Week With Marilyn, Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) has arrived in 1956... More >>

• "Hugo" Milks the 3-D Trend for Scorsese's Timeless Cause

  published November 24, 2011

  Martin Scorsese's first foray into 3-D family filmmaking centers on its title character, played by Asa Butterfield, a just-prepubescent orphan... More >>

• A Mad-Scientist Tale Without the Moral Compass in "The Skin I Live In"

  published November 3, 2011

  The morality of the mad-scientist tale has remained more or less fixed since the beginning of sound cinema: From Dr. Frankenstein's... More >>

• "Footloose" 2011 Has the Moves to Bridge Generations and Capture Two Demographics

  published October 13, 2011

  In hindsight, the 1984 hit Footloose — starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Herbert Ross — along with its contemporary... More >>

• With "Contagion," Steven Soderbergh Turns the Star-Studded Hollywood Disaster Flick on Its Head

  published September 8, 2011

  Currently the fifth-to-last film on Steven Soderbergh's ever-expanding preretirement slate, Contagion opens on day two of a global viral... More >>

• Couch Surfing Paul Rudd Makes His Siblings Better People in "Our Idiot Brother"

  published August 25, 2011

  In Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, an upstate New York version of "The Dude" Lebowski who is "entrapped" into selling pot to a... More >>

• Life Happens According to Plan in "One Day," Starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess

  published August 18, 2011

  Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay and novel by David Nicholls, One Day stars Anne Hathaway as Emma, a... More >>

• Civil Rights Through a Soft Focus Lens in "The Help"

  published August 11, 2011

  More than just the Hollywood "it" girl of the moment, Emma Stone is a real actress, and in The Help, she gets an ostentatious,... More >>

• Can a Radiant Brit Marling Glow Brightly Enough to Carry "Another Earth"?

  published August 11, 2011

  There may be nothing as Old Hollywood as the narrative about a pretty girl summoning up a dose of pluck to triumph over adversity. And yet Brit... More >>

• "The Change-Up" Swaps Two Dudes Pissing Away Their Lives

  published August 4, 2011

  A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard-issue anal-retentive... More >>

• "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" Is Strangely Provocative

  published August 4, 2011

  Nina (Li Bingbing) is a Shanghai career girl who drops plans to move to New York when she learns her estranged bestie, Sophie (Gianna Jun), is... More >>

• "I Love You Phillip Morris" Directors Fall Short of Their Own High Bar With "Crazy, Stupid, Love"

  published July 28, 2011

  In the first scene of Crazy, Stupid, Love, Emily (Julianne Moore) tells Cal (Steve Carell), her high school sweetheart and husband of... More >>

• "Captain America" Ignores Its Roots for Easy Money

  published July 21, 2011

  Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in 1941, Captain America was among the first American comic books intended as an... More >>

• Three Put-Upon Employees to Eliminate Their "Horrible Bosses"

  published July 7, 2011

  There's a scene in Horrible Bosses in which Jennifer Aniston, playing a dentist who habitually sexually harasses her weakling male... More >>

• Tom Hanks Seems Lost in "Larry Crowne"

  published June 30, 2011

  For a movie called Larry Crowne, it sure is tough to get a solid read on the character of Larry Crowne. As the film opens, Larry seems... More >>

• "Bad Teacher" and the Downside of Equal Rights in Hollywood

  published June 23, 2011

  From Tad Friend's New Yorker profile of Anna Faris (which Jezebel.com reblogged under the headline... More >>

• The Shameless Indulgence and Naked Confessional of Yves Saint-Laurent in "L'amour Fou"

  published June 16, 2011

  L'amour Fou opens with unbroken footage from designer Yves Saint-Laurent's 2002 speech announcing his retirement from fashion, after... More >>

• Investigating the Problem of Time in "Midnight in Paris"

  published June 2, 2011

  A nebbishy screenwriter who longs to publish a novel, Gil (Owen Wilson) is tentatively working on a book set in a nostalgia shop — much... More >>

• A Comedy Written by and Starring Women, "Bridesmaids" Still Screwed

  published May 12, 2011

  Built around the talents of cowriter/lead actress Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids is the first female-fronted comedy produced by Hollywood... More >>

• "Fast Five" Ups the Bromance -- and the Clichés

  published April 28, 2011

  The fifth installment in The Fast and the Furious franchise picks up where the fourth left off: Lunkhead street racer/noble criminal... More >>

• Ellen Page a Revelation in Tonally Uneven "Super"

  published April 14, 2011

  When a local crime boss (Kevin Bacon) lures away his wife (Liv Tyler), lifelong pushover Frank (Rainn Wilson) — under the influence of a... More >>

• Love, French-Canadian Style in "Heartbeats"

  published April 7, 2011

  Heartbeats, the second feature from 21-year-old wünderkind Xavier Dolan, is an Instagram of the way we fuck now — or, more... More >>

• "Arthur" a Remake Without the Pleasures From the Original

  published April 7, 2011

  In this rethink of the 1981 screwball throwback, the titular drunken heir, originally played by lovable lump Dudley Moore, has been rebuilt to... More >>

• Indie Edges Sanded Down Completely in "Win Win"

  published April 7, 2011

  Paul Giamatti continues contemporary cinema's longest pre-midlife crisis in Win Win as Mike, yet another schlubby 40-something flummoxed... More >>