POSTED // Aug 10,2012 - It’s no surprise that the trailer for Ruby Sparks inspired dread in some film journalists. Here she was again, it appeared: That perky, quirky, romantic heroine dubbed by pop-culture writer Nathan Rabin “the manic pixie dream girl”

POSTED // Aug 3,2012 - There are films that belong on the “do not remake ever, under penalty of eternal mockery” list, but Total Recall? Puh-leeze. It may have been somewhat more stylish than the typical Arnold Schwarzenegger catchphrase delivery system of the late ’80s and early ’90s, but we’re still talking about satisfying Paul Verhoeven trash here, not an inviolable classic.

POSTED // Aug 3,2012 - Director Todd Solondz had his moment in the … well, we’ll call it “sunshine” with 1998’s Happiness, a spectacularly assured downer that somehow served as the missing link between John Waters and Ingmar Bergman.

POSTED // Jul 26,2012 - It started as a simple Twitter comment by movie-awards blogger Sasha Stone of AwardsDaily.com—or at least she probably thought it was simple. “Most critics see films with a poker-faced cro

POSTED // Jul 20,2012 - When it comes to movies, “buzz” is a potentially game-changing—and potentially heartbreaking—phenomenon. And Beasts of the Southern Wild has felt both sides of the equation.

POSTED // Jul 18,2012 - Over the past seven years, Christopher Nolan has been turning the story of a comic-book superhero into an operatic meditation on what it is that can save us from ourselves. And as he approaches the climactic, soaring aria in the final act—The Dark Knight Rises—his voice cracks.

POSTED // Jul 13,2012 - Now that we have improbably reached the fourth installment in the Ice Age franchise, can we just acknowledge that these features are little more than a Scrat delivery system?

POSTED // Jul 12,2012 - From July 13 to 15, the Utah Film Center presents the ninth-annual Damn! These Heels Film Festival, showcasing 11 fiction and documentary features on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes.

POSTED // Jul 6,2012 - Flush from the career resurgence of 2011’s Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen takes us to the latest stop on his long European vacation in the multinarrative tale To Rome With Love.

POSTED // Jul 2,2012 - I’m sure there are people who will argue that The Amazing Spider-Man should be evaluated on its own merits, as a work separate from the legacy of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films over the past decade.