126 articles

Maybe it’s a sign that healthcare issues have become a prominent part of the general American consciousness: I went to see two quite different Hollywood comedies and each featured a character who was...
Jan 1, 2011 / Alison Frank
December 27, 2010 – The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), the international professional association of Internet-based film reviewers, has announced the nominations for its 2010 OFCS Awards. The...
Dec 27, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
Adapted from David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Rabbit Hole” ferries us down into the blackest void of parental despair and bravely leaves us without a sturdy rope to climb back...
Dec 27, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
“Washington is like Hollywood, only without the pretty faces.” This, according to Kevin Spacey’s idealistic, wise-cracking super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff on the two-faced, backstabbing nature of...
Dec 22, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
© 2010 Fox Searchlight Pictures Teetering on the edge between melodrama and high art, “Black Swan” is a gripping, spooky, exultant picture that is as beautiful as it is ugly. Sure to divide...
Dec 2, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
Anyone who has ever worked in a corporate setting or been trained in some unique job or activity has had to sit through an outdated, ineffectual instructional video. When I worked as a data operator...
Nov 29, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
“The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium” [Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray ]. Stephen...
Nov 25, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
Children are cinema’s simultaneously fetishized commodity and artless liability. You can’t harm them, yet you can have them perpetrate terrible acts of inhumanity. “Ana’s Playground” cuts through the...
Nov 5, 2010 / Eric M. Armstrong
I scarcely remember grinning as much during a film as I did while watching “Let Me In.” Grinning during a horror movie, you ask? Allow me to explain. It was an all-encompassing smile of pleasure,...
Oct 30, 2010 / Vanessa Graniello
Now that the 54 th London Film Festival has drawn to a close, it’s time to look back at all of the feature films that I reviewed. Here is the list, ordered from best to worst. 1) Dhobi Ghat 2) The...
Oct 29, 2010 / Alison Frank
Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right is one of those films that’s fun to watch at the cinema, just for the appreciative reactions of the audience. I’m sure I saw a few eyes being wiped during its...
Oct 28, 2010 / Alison Frank
Initially, Ayub Khan Din was hesitant to write a sequel to East is East (1999): the film was among the most successful independent British films ever made, and he knew that sequels rarely live up to...
Oct 25, 2010 / Alison Frank
Aaron Katz’s Cold Weather is a nice film that could have been even better. It centres on Doug, a young man who has abandoned his degree in forensics to come home to Portland, Oregon. There, he shares...
Oct 24, 2010 / Alison Frank
Kiran Rao has made an excellent debut with Dhobi Ghat (aka Mumbai Diaries ), a film which she wrote and directed, and which had its first UK screening at the London Film Festival last night. During...
Oct 24, 2010 / Alison Frank
It’s been an exciting week with lots of premieres and gala screenings in London. Here’s a selection of images from this past week. You can read up on many of the films screened here. So far, I have...
Oct 24, 2010 / Alison Frank


