Film, TV & Streaming

A mushroom cloud blooms over Manhattan at the opening of The Divide. We see it reflected in the tearful eyes of Eva (Lauren German), who’ll spend much of the subsequent movie watching and waiting. She and eight other building residents, including her French fiancé, Sam (Iván González), manage to get…

A holy hot mess of the sacred and the inane, Joyful Noise, about a small-town Southern gospel choir, lifts from Usher’s “Yeah!” to give us this inspirational lyric: “Now God and I are the best of homies.” The film is Jesus for Gleeks — no surprise, since writer-director Todd Graff’s…

In the first scene of The Iron Lady, which re-teams director Phyllida Lloyd with her Mamma Mia! star Meryl Streep, eightysomething Margaret Thatcher is presented as a little old lady unfit for the fast-moving world outside her hermetic London townhouse. The bulk of the movie takes place in an even…

Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s hit play, Carnage, stars Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet as two sets of Brooklyn parents whose social, economic and philosophic differences are leveled in less than 80 minutes by their common pettiness and immaturity. Posh pair Alan and Nancy…

The first weekend in January, and the month as a whole, is traditionally known as a kitchen sink for theatrical releases…unfortunately, it’s typically stuff that, at any other time of the year, would end up in the garbage disposal. Instead of the studio flipping the switch on it and going…

The first 10 minutes of Dee Rees’ funny, moving, nuanced and impeccably acted first feature, in which coming of age and coming out are inseparable, sharply reveal the conflicts that 17-year-old Alike (Adepero Oduye) faces. At a lesbian club — maybe for the first time — she gapes in awe…

Should auld acquaintance be forgot – or if you forgot to make plans for the evening — don’t forget that there are lots of cinema New Year’s Eve scenes worth celebrating. Pop a cork and ring in the New Year and lots of yesteryears with these flicks. (Hey, it’s more…

What a year it was at the movies! Just reflect for a second all the places we’ve traveled together on our cinematic voyages of 2011 in that theatrical transport known as film. Alternate worlds and realities. All over the map of our own. Forward to the future. Back in time…

It’s the biggest movie weekend of the year! Let’s check out the season’s offerings at the movie theater… Director David Fincher returns to his bloody roots a la Se7en and takes his own albeit unique stab at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in the late Stieg Larsson’s…

Except for the debut of the Three Stooges trailer, this has been a great month for Hollywood teasing upcoming blockbusters. Over on Apple’s trailer site, you can find Prometheus, The Hobbit, and The Dark Knight Rises first official trailer. Damn fine week, ol’ Hollywood. Which means, it didn’t take long…

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is hardly a personal project. Still, David Fincher’s sveltely malevolent remake of the 2009 Swedish blockbuster directed by Niels Arden Oplev from Stieg Larsson’s rambling thriller, a posthumously published international bestseller and Kindle record-holder, is a recognizably Fincherian caper. The movie, which opens with…

When I told someone I was off to a screening of We Bought a Zoo the other day, the response was an eye-roll. The reaction is understandable: Save for two music docs — an Elton John-Leon Russell album making-of and that Pearl Jam anniversary infomercial — Cameron Crowe has been…

There’s a very, very good chance you haven’t seen the best movie of 2011. At least, that’s what Karina Longworth is saying in this week’s cover story. Margaret, Kenneth Lonergan’s latest starring Anna Paquin, Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo, is the best film of the year, Longworth says. So, yep,…

An exciting moment late in the day yesterday: The debut of the official trailer for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings prequel, you know, The Hobbit. Finally. If you didn’t know, Tolkien’s book is being adapted by the pretty much same crew as LOTR (including an epic soundtrack by Howard…

The greatest old broad on TV, Betty White, doesn’t just outlive her contemporaries; she outworks them, too. She’s about to turn 90 and will celebrate with a TV special, Betty White’s 90th Birthday: A Tribute to America’s Golden Girl, airing at 7 p.m. CT, Monday, January 16, on NBC. Joining…

This weekend brings us the release of not one, not two, but three sequels, which also happen to be a few of the biggest cinematic adventures to hits theaters this holiday season! I hope you are the type to pay a visit to the snack bar on your movie theater…

Over on Unfair Park, Robert Wilonsky posted the full release from the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics picks of the best films of 2011. Descendants, the Alexander Payne drama with George Clooney, is a topper as well as Drive (full Q&A with the director right here), Martin Scorcese’s Hugo, and Steve…

Earlier this year, the Alamo Drafthouse released a video of a completely real-life voicemail from a rather-upset film patron who was booted from the theater after texting during the film. The Drafthouse, which I’d argue is one of the great theaters in our Milky Way, is very clear about their…

Described as a “psychotic prom-queen bitch,” the anti-heroine of Young Adult is a prize part that affords Charlize Theron one of the season’s prize performances — although, to judge from the voting at the New York Film Critics Circle conclave last week, few of my colleagues seem to agree. Perhaps…

Although supplying boy’s adventure thrills on the side, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories are remarkable for how they make the process of empirical brainwork, and the resulting discoveries, breathlessly exciting. Each Holmes tale simultaneously unlocks a mystery while deepening the enigma of its hero in a miraculously sustained piece…