In the maelstrom of muck that passes itself as filmmaking today, it is reassuring to come across the occasional gem made by genuine talents who still know how to tell a classic story with coherence and charm. The aura of William Faulkner lingers over Get Low, a chunk of down-home rural Southern folklore Read More
Crazy Heart
Running time 111 minutes
Written and directed by Scott Cooper
Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall
Jeff Bridges is not aging well, but when he stopped shaving, he started acting. The acting shows in Crazy Heart, an otherwise boring slice of country-fried steak with an exceptional performance by the Read More
The Road
Running time 119 minutes
Written by Joe Penhall
Directed by John Hillcoat
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce
Welcome to the apocalypse. In The Road, the eagerly awaited movie version of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, the end of the world is no longer on Read More
Four Christmases
Running time 82 minutes
Written by Matt Allen, Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Directed by Seth Gordon
Starring Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Sissy Spacek, Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight
O.K., go ahead and make fun of Christmas. Every year, somebody does. Like the people Read More
Robert Duvall will join Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn in the holiday romp, Four Christmases, set to start production in December. Mr. Vaughn is trying extra hard to get on Santa’s good list this year (Fred Claus, now Four Christmases?)
Vaughn and Witherspoon also are producing the pic, in which a Read More
When the great, irreplaceable Rosemary Clooney died, she left her lifetime collection of musical arrangements-a 60-year career of archival-status treasures, from soup to nuts-to Debby Boone. Not to the ASCAP, the Smithsonian or the Salvation Army, but to Pat Boone’s little girl. This is not as odd as it seems. The only thing Rosie loved Read More
When the current silly season is over, Arnold Schwarzenegger may win over the pectoral college, but Kevin Costner will get the popular vote. His wonderful new film Open Range is the kind of movie guaranteed to make just about everybody happy. If cowboy movies are passé, it’s because they all look and sound alike. But Read More
In the aftermath of 9/11, when New York was on its knees, Anne Nelson, a journalist from the Upper West Side, wrote eulogies for a Brooklyn fire captain who lost the men in his station, later turning this profoundly moving experience into a play, The Guys , with the help of director Jim Simpson, husband Read More
“Amanda gone? Nah-not Amanda. Not that girl!” wrote Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, on McSweeney’s Web site on Tuesday. “Too big-hearted, too bouncy, too funny, too sweet, too goofy, too playful, too smart, too wiser-than-her-years for her to be gone.”
Like Ms. Orlean, much of the New York literary world seemed to be Read More
