How long can any film review go before calling Salmon Fishing in Yemen a fish out of water story? Not to mention that the film stars Emily Blunt and her prominent lips. Every time Ewan McGregor’s Scottish fish expert looks at mackerel, he must think of her. The man who took over Obi-Wan Kenobi becomes a new Dr. Jones, taking on an impossible mission of faith in Arabia. At one point, he even mentions the Ark of the Covenant

Teenagers in movies are smarter than those in real life. They’re smoother. They’re cooler. They spend Friday nights at hip parties with hip music, rather than locked in their rooms with their best friends lip-synching to an embarrassing amount of Katy Perry. Mass-marketed films with teenagers operate outside of the neuroses of growing up, the insecurities of personality, in confidence rather than confusion about sex.

Act of Valor begins with the sort of sappy voice-over letter that someone should regret. Preceding the storyline (and hence the letter) directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh appear on camera in what looks like a pre-emptive apologia. Speaking directly to the audience, the two men explain they cast real-life, non-actor Navy Seals and their families in hopes of celebrating the real people and capturing the experience raw. These real

It’s commonly accepted among the film literate that this is the year of living in the past. What else could it be? The frontrunner for a Best Picture Oscar is a silent movie for crying out loud (or not crying out loud, as the case may be). Can flagpole-sitting and the Charleston be far behind? While the conventional wisdom has reached this conclusion, it hasn't established what the wisdom of eating a bowl of sugary yesteryear for

Director Ti West's feature debut, “The House of the Devil” (2009), was a deftly executed homage to both classic haunted house flicks and the great female-centered horror films of the sixties and seventies (particularly Rosemary's Baby, 1968). Fanatically aware of the conventions of the genre, its titles were ever lovingly rendered in a classic seventies burnt-orange which matched the nostalgia expressed through its

“Judy, Judy,” Jimmy Stewart famously told Kim Novak in Vertigo, as he forced her to change her appearance to that of his dead lover. “It can’t make that much difference to you.”This was Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous and revealing line in his 1958 classic, a meditation on the male gaze. I thought of it when I read about Haywire’s post-production. Director Steven Soderbergh deepened the voice of star Gina Carano

Carnage tells the story of two couples who meet to discuss in as civilized and understanding a manner as possible the schoolyard spat of their sons that resulted in broken teeth and harsh words. One pair of parents comes to the other pair’s apartment to discuss the situation. After they come to an agreement about the wording of a document describing the incident, things start going downhill. For an excruciating hour and a half