By Rex Reed 9/25/12 7:54pm

movies

Lerman in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

An Emotional Catchall, Wallflower Chronicles High School to the Hilt

In a compilation of life’s most painful and punishing experiences, I would put high school at the top of the list. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, adapted by writer-director Stephen Chbosky from his best-selling novel about freshman year at a Pittsburgh high school in 1991, is a structurally messy but emotionally effective coming of age movie that gets a lot of it right. High school is an ordeal only the fittest can survive.

Every inaugural freshman embarking on the first day of this new adventure suffers the same anxiety, frustration and fear of the unknown, but for gawky, 15-year-old misfit Charlie (Logan Lerman), the terror is especially acute. Read More

By Drew Grant 8/27/12 6:01pm

Celebrity

Ezra Miller in Comme Des Garcons (Paper Magazine)

Queer Duck: Ezra Miller Makes Coming Out Confusing

Two weeks ago, 19-year-old actor Ezra Miller gave Out Magazine a “candid” interview and revealed that he was homosexual. Sort of.

We’re not sure if the small amount of fanfare that trumpeted this admission was due to our culture’s gradual acceptance of alternative sexualities, or because anyone who has seen Mr. Miller outside of a movie would find it weirder if the Perks of Being a Wallflower actor announced he was straight. Read More

By Drew Grant 1/16/12 10:50am

Film

Ezra Miller in We Need to Talk About Kevin

Ezra Miller Talks We Need to Talk About Kevin

On a frosty Friday night at the Angelika, the 7:30 showing of We Need to Talk About Kevin was sold out. As we scooted towards an empty seat in the back, we wondered what could possibly account for such a large crowd for a non-premiere of the Lionel Shriver adaptation.

After the disturbing, somewhat fractured retelling of a young sociopath (played at different life stages by Rocky Duer, Jasper Newell, and Ezra Miller) and his ice queen mother (Tilda Swinton), we found out: as the lights went up, a lanky figure in a full-length fur-coat traipsed the length of the stage and was introduced for a Q&A session. Ezra Miller was going to be taking our questions for the evening. Read More

By Henry Krempels 12/08/11 6:11pm

movies

Ezra Miller

The Most Misunderstood Kid In America? Ezra Miller's Star is on the Rise.

At the recent New York premiere of We Need To Talk About Kevin, a scruffy looking kid with thrift store apparel and long-unattended to hair, told The Observer of the decision he’s made to never play a character  he doesn’t deem “honest”. We had just seen him depict an intense psychological battle with his on screen mother, Tilda Swinton, which concluded in the most unforgiving of ways. Read More

By Rex Reed 11/30/11 10:57am

movies

Ms. Swinton and Mr. Reilly.

We Need to Talk With Kevin is Just a Long Conversation with a Hideous Film

We Need to Talk About Kevin. Why? I’d rather just ignore him—and this vile, pretentious movie—completely. With an incomprehensible script and jigsaw-puzzle direction, both by Scottish poseur Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher), and a loopy performance by weirdo Tilda Swinton as the half-mad mother of a serial killer, this is the most unwatchable horror movie masquerading as social comment I have seen this year. Read More

By Henry Krempels 11/16/11 2:10pm

Movie premiere

10 Photos

Ellen Barkin

Another Happy Day For A Premiere

We had high hopes for an energetic evening on Monday night when we arrived at The Sunshine Cinema for the New York Premiere of Another Happy Day, an indie film about a dysfunctional family starring Ezra Miller and Ellen Barkin and written and directed by Sam Levinson. The Observer arrived eager to meet and greet the stars of the winner of the Sundance Prize for Best Screenwriting, but the night delivered a more low-key evening than we anticipated. Read More

By Rex Reed 11/16/11 10:28am

movies

Barkin.

Top-Shelf Ensemble Gets Better-Than-Average Blood-Ties Dysfunction Drama

Back to the darkness of wedding-bell blues. Another Happy Day is another strained comedy about another dysfunctional family, but with some fine performances by a stellar ensemble of first-cabin performers that are definitely worth applauding. Despite the obvious comparisons to Jonathan Demme’s sprightly Rachel Getting Married, Noah Baumbach’s dreadful Margot at the Wedding and a dozen other movies about how weddings bring out the worst in everybody, this one does mark an auspicious feature debut by a very talented writer-director, Sam Levinson, whose career is totally worth keeping an eye on.

I tend to forget how marvelous Ellen Barkin can be until she gets the rare chance to pull out all the stops in a movie like this. Read More

By Christopher Rosen 4/23/10 2:40pm

Dispatches from Tribeca: Beware the Gonzo Scores, Ian Dury Bores

Someone should have told director Bryan Goluboff that indie filmmakers are supposed to make “serious” pictures and not derivative and fun high-school comedies. Alas, maybe next time.

Mr. Goluboff’s directorial debut, Beware the Gonzo, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last night, and it immediately feels like the type of late-summer indie Read More