POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Striking colors are relentlessly splashed on every frame of film, conjuring a revolutionary beauty. The characters’ faces are abstract Easter Islandish slabs, but every grin or grimace is registered clearly. Outdoor vistas resemble paintings by...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - The Coen brothers were overdue to make a black-and-white movie. In a career spent turning film genres upside down with their revolutionary but utterly distinctive spin, it was high time for Joel and Ethan Coen to attack film’s greatest aesthetic...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Before he retreated to his gold-plated island with security guards dressed like Superman and a lifetime supply of cereal, Jerry Seinfeld used to joke that the idea of his parents having sex so utterly creeped him out, he was forced to delude himself into...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Everybody knows there are plenty of ways to suffer horrific injuries during the holidays. ‘Tis the season of death, you know. But in addition to the tragically common casualties caused by elf-tossing, hallucinogenic eggnog and rabid reindeer, few...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Very infrequently, it’s possible to let go of logic at the movies because there’s something better to grab onto. In the case of Ocean’s Eleven, you’ll be happy to clutch the tails of some truly fantastic suit coats for an improbable...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - The problem with Edward Burns directing a movie about the lives and loves of real people is that he’s not a real person any more. He’s a movie star and a major player in the film industry, as illogical and sad as that may be to those who’ve...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - It seems odd to end a season of such openness and celebration with a film about social claustrophobia and long-repressed secrets, but then again, we’ll all be in the Ethan Hawke Book of the Month Club before Richard Linklater makes a predictable...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - There are few things loved more by the masses than an embarrassment. Specifically, we love to see the mighty fall. If they rise again, fine—as long as the fall was spectacular and painful. Our culture of Schadenfreude is almost as deeply ingrained...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - The most depressing thing about K-PAX is that a lot of people will like it. This fable—about a man who might be an alien and the doctor who tries to understand him—is a stupid person’s idea of an intelligent film (maybe that’s...

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Like Bergman and Renoir before him, Lukas Moodysson is intent on creating masterpieces in confined spaces. It’s easy to fail in films that are almost solely about human relations—even before any plot is unfurled. If the characters don’t...