Fiennes’ Prickly The Invisible Woman Is Hard Not to Love

A tale of love complicated — if not thwarted — by prior responsibilities, intractable barriers, and the rigid high-society norms that frustrate its Victorian characters’ attempts to live as they so desperately want, The Invisible Woman finds Ralph Fiennes proving as adept behind the camera as he is in front…

The Legend of Hercules Boasts Swords and Great Pecs

January! Just the time to snuggle up with a 3-D sword-and-pectoral extravaganza. And although some of its more imaginative plot details would make Edith Hamilton blanch, Renny Harlin’s The Legend of Hercules fulfills every silly, flimsy promise it makes in the first place: There are lots of battles (though rather…

Is Sugar the New Cigarettes? Fed Up, a New Sundance Film, Thinks So

Sixty years ago, Fred Flintstone hawked Winston cigarettes. Today, he pitches cereal. And both can kill. Stephanie Soechtig’s rabble-rousing documentary Fed Up argues that it’s time to attack Big Sugar just like we successfully demonized Big Tobacco. Narrated by Katie Couric, Fed Up is the first doc of Sundance to…

A Domineering Streep Doesn’t Quite Kill August: Osage County

Without big truth-telling scenes, grand, great-lady, Meryl Streep-type actors would be out of work. Hell, Meryl Streep would be out of work. But for now, at least, August: Osage County, John Wells’ film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, keeps her out of the bread line. Streep plays…

Lone Survivor Shows Our Boys Suffering but Doesn’t Ask Why

Here’s a movie that’ll flop in Kabul. Lone Survivor, the latest by Battleship director Peter Berg, is a jingoistic snuff film about a Navy SEAL squadron outgunned by the Taliban in the mountainous Kunar province. After four soldiers — played with muscles and machismo by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile…

In Her, Joaquin Phoenix Romances Technology

Written and directed by Spike Jonze. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, and Amy Adams. 120 minutes. Rated R.The terrible reality of modern life is that even beautiful young people on a first date can’t go a whole evening without checking their phones. Just allowing the present to happen has become…

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Is a Clown’s Stab at a Masterpiece

In the 20 years since Reality Bites, his directorial debut, Ben Stiller has metastasized from sketch comedy lunatic to Generation X darling to blockbuster king. Among the funnymen, most of whom have calcified into cliques (yawn, Anchorman 2), he’s the last of the triple-threat writer-director-stars and the only one who…

Ten Movies to See in 2014

As awards season draws nearer and best-of-the-year lists keep rolling in, there’s only one thing left to do: get excited about what comes next. Here are 10 films you won’t want to miss in 2014. 1. Adieu au language (Directed by Jean-Luc Godard) Jean-Luc Godard, master of the French Nouvelle…

The Best Films of 2013

Toasting computer love, a genocide musical, and a Midwestern odyssey – [Or: “The Best of 2013: Take Two” or something if you’re running both Amy’s and Stephanie’s lists] I could write a Shakespearean sonnet about each film on my Top 10 of 2013, but we know we’re all here for…

The 2013 Village Voice Film Poll

In 2013 there were a thousand bright lights and no strong center — even with Gravity, which ranked No. 8 on our tally of almost 100 critics’ bests. The results in this year’s Village Voice Film Poll, like the decisions arrived at by critics’ circles around the country, suggest that…

Marilyn Manson Stars as Teen in Wacky Wrong Cops

When he was 13, Marilyn Manson — then just Christian schoolkid Brian Warner of Canton, Ohio — would hide out in the basement while his grandfather masturbated to bestiality porn. Then he’d go upstairs and cheer himself up by reading Mad magazine. The self-dubbed God of Fuck — who later…

The Dreary 47 Ronin Falls On Its Sword

Solemn as a funeral march, humorless as your junior high principal, as Japanese as a grocery-store California roll, Keanu Reeves’s let’s-mope-about-and-kill-ourselves samurai drama has exactly three things going for it. First, the cockeyed sensuality of Rinko Kikuchi as a spider-puking evil witch who can transform herself into a fox, a…