End of the year, or in this case, end of the decade lists are, by their nature, as protean as they are personal. If composed a month, or even a week from now, this same list might’ve seen a change in its order and even its content. There are several unavoidable evils that come along with [...]
Like “Juno” and “Thank You for Smoking” before it, Jason Reitman’s third film “Up in the Air” is a light, surefooted comedy rooted in moments of genuine heart. Like Juno MacGuff and Nick Naylor before him, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), the film’s protagonist, lives a lonely and somewhat troubled existence before he’s able, by uniting [...]
“Honey, I’m seven non-fox years old,” Mr. Fox (George Clooney) tells his wife as the camera pushes in on them sitting down to breakfast, “My father died at seven-and-a-half. I don’t want to live in a hole anymore. And I’m gonna do something about it.” Then, after a pregnant pause, he [...]
As she stumbles, panting, through thick underbrush at the beginning of “New Moon,” Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) comes face to face with that which she fears most. No, she doesn’t encounter a villainous monster (series author Stephenie Meyer has defanged or declawed most of these); instead, she sees herself grow old. Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)―her [...]
Admin Note: In honor of the release of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and to whet your appetite for our forthcoming review, reprinted here is Kevin’s original review of “Twilight” from the UCR Highlander.
On atheism, the Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts wrote that “when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing [...]
A needle and thread, pushed and pulled through muslin, are kept in shallow focus during the first few moments of “Bright Star.” Their movements, rendered by the calm and certain hands of Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), mirror those director Jane Campion took with her subject. Rather than juggle all the years of John Keats’ life, [...]
Where to begin. “The Box” doesn’t really make any sense, the acting is inconsistent (with the notable exception of Frank Langella), the score is abominable and Richard Kelly doesn’t seem to understand how unintentionally funny some of the images he puts on the screen are. That being said, there’s a certain charm to such a [...]
“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is a fatuous, if harmless farce, one that, while it is vaguely likeable, is far from interesting. The first half―meandering and overly expository― does little to legitimize the unconventional story and even less to set the foundations for the painfully anticlimactic scenes that follow it; not sincere enough to [...]
If, like me, you grew up in the early 1990s, Nazis were probably not the bad guys you shot your imaginary guns at when you defended the playground jungle gym. All the same, there are few people who don’t enjoy seeing anyone (and it literally seems like it could be anyone; Americans treat communists like [...]
Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier splits his latest film, “Antichrist,” into six chapters, and each is less impressive than the last. The title cards that introduce these chapters are synecdochic of the film itself: vaguely ominous, aesthetically interesting, but ultimately unnecessary.