F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the billion-dollar staple of American high-school reading. At times, watching Baz Luhrmann’s fantasy “The Great Gatsby” feels like reliving the entire length of junior year. At other times, it reaches out to the green light and snatches what it’s after: a mad dream of one of America’s essential novels. "The Great Gatsby" by Baz Luhrmann is ... more >
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The Great Gatsby
An rousing 3-D version of the great American novel
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Iron Man 3
Sharp but overwhelming
Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle
Directed by Shane Black
In a movie where flying metal meets flying metaphors, “Iron Man 3” is like rooting for a good hammer. Billionaire playboy industrialist Tony Stark makes it possible to pilot a fleet of Iron Man outfits by remote control, while he munches In’N’Out burgers miles away. “Iron Man” has become “Iron Drone.” The real metaphor here is the empty suit. Among the faithful, that change ... more >
To the wonder
Your guide to Terence Malick's To The Wonder
Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko
Directed by Terence Malick
Here’s a topic for sitting around the campfire: are the worst films by the best directors still better than 80% of what is released? Are say, "Bringing Out the Dead" or "The Hudsucker Proxy" still relative carrots for the eyes when compared to the "Transformer" movies? Terrence Malick’s "To the Wonder" is a lot more "The Prairie Home Companion" than "McCabe and Mrs. Miller." Following in ... more >
The company you keep
Under surveillance
Robert Redford, Shia LeBeouf and Julie Christie
Directed by Robert Redford
Things begin in the sixties in Robert Redford’s "The Company You Keep." A group of radicals rob a bank in Michigan. The ringleader, shown in dusty old FBI wanted posters, looks remarkably like The Sundance Kid. Who are those guys? That’s the question the Feds are asking, and they have asked for more than thirty years. More accurately, where are those guys? The robbers long ago blended ... more >
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Magicians with mullets
Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi and Jim Carrey
Directed by Don Scardino
I should be describing “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” to let you know the positives and negatives of the latest Steve Carell mass-market comedy. But watching it, all I could wonder was, whatever happened to Steve Buscemi and the Coen Brothers? At one time he was arguably the foremost actor associated with the reticent Minnesota siblings, playing roles in all five of their features in the ... more >
Emperor
Bearing the ultimate choice
Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox
Directed by Peter Webber
It’s been an interesting few months for history on film. A series of releases have raised the ever-present question of historical depiction. One film, "Zero Dark Thirty," was threatened with Congressional investigations over its portrayal of torture. "Argo" takes vast liberties with the Iranian hostage crisis, but no one except the Iranians seems to mind. No film is quite as dependent on ... more >
Identity Thief
Poor Jason Bateman
Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy and Robert Patrick
Directed by Seth Gordon
Poor Jason Bateman. Nothing good ever happens to him. He doesn’t get to be Seth Rogen dishing out one liners. His form of comedy involves being the average guy taking abuse––punches, stomps, bites, and the rest of it. No one takes a kick to the groin quite like Jason Bateman. He’s a little like a modern Jack Lemmon, the normal man beset by his circumstances. In “Identity Thief ... more >
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