By July, it was clear that there were already more than a half-dozen films that could securely claim a spot on a 10 best list. Overall, it was very good year, offering almost something for everyone, and with plenty of notable films hovering below the cut (the austere Paradise trilogy, the awards favorite 12 Years […]
Directed by John Lee Hancock
Written by Kelly Marcel & Sue Smith
Produced by Alison Owen, Ian Collie & Philip Steuer
Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
UK/USA. 125 min. Rated PG-13
With Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Annie Rose Buckley, Ruth Wilson, B. J. Novak, Rachel Griffiths, Kathy Baker, Colin Farrell & Melanie […]
Written & Directed by Alex Gibney
Produced by Frank Marshall, Matt Tolmach & Gibney
Released by Sony Pictures Classics
USA. 123 min. Rated R
“Exhaustive.” That’s the best description for Alex Gibney’s thorough 123-minute scrutiny of Lance Armstrong and his now tainted sports record. In particular, he zeroes in on Armstrong’s ill-fated 2009 Tour de France comeback, which raised […]
Directed by Brian De Palma
Produced by Saïd Ben Saïd
Written by Mr. De Palma & Nathalie Carter, based on the French film Crime d’Amour
Released by Entertainment One
Germany/France. 102 min. Rated R
With Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson & Rainer Bock
Split screen and misleading dream sequences: Brian De Palma’s latest brings back his flourishes from […]
Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz
Produced by Mr. Schwarz, Lotti Pharriss Knowles, Lance Robertson & Jon Glover
Released by Automat Pictures.
USA. 90 min. Not rated
At Paramount, Josef von Sternberg turned Marlene Dietrich into a screen goddess. Forty years later, shoestring Baltimore filmmaker John Waters did the same, helping to mold a screen icon of a different sort, […]
Written & Directed by J. C. Chandor
Produced by Neal Dodson, Anna Gerb, Justin Nappi & Teddy Schwarzman
Released by Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions
USA. 107 min. PG-13
With Robert Redford
This steadily absorbing man-adrift-on-a-damaged-sailboat saga has possibly the three most suspenseful sequences of the year and in many ways blows another survival-against-the odds-odyssey, Gravity, out of the water (more puns […]
An Indian father accompanies his young—and only—son, Siddharth, to an outdoor bus station. He waves goodbye to his smiling boy as the packed bus drives off 200 miles north, where Siddharth has been sent to work in a trolley factory. The boy, nicknamed Siddhu, is supposed to come back a month later for Diwali, but […]
Produced & Directed by Nick Ryan
Written by Mark Monroe
Released by Sundance Selects
Ireland/UK/USA/Switzerland. 99 min. Rated R
In early August 2008, 11 of the 18 mountain climbers who reached the top of K2, the world’s second highest peak, died during the descent, which is regarded as the deadliest 48 hours on the Pakistani peak—second in height to […]
The 51st New York Film Festival arrives with a touch of scandal, courtesy of two French films. As soon as it premiered at Cannes, Blue Is the Warmest Color was almost overshadowed by its extended lesbian sex scenes, but not enough to obscure the strong performances. It won the Palme d’Or, awarded to its director […]
