"Avengers" assembles best elements of its genre
Avengers took the humor-tinged mech-action of Iron Man, the Shakespearean epicness of Thor, and threw in a little political correctness for good measure. This is how you do a superhero film.
The less you know the better about "The Cabin in the Woods"
It is deliciously ingenious and a lot of fun and breaths much needed new life into a predictable and hackneyed genre.
"In Darkness": How a few Polish Jews escaped the Nazis
What would you find if you had to take your children and a few assorted people down into the sewer to live?
Got Hope? "Detachment" doesn't!
Everything about this "real life high school" movie is tragic and miserable. The students are clinging to the edges of teenage life, the teachers are losing their minds, and the principal is getting divorced and fired.
"The Hunger Games" better than expected
The Hunger Games is more than a teen movie, more than a pointless American rehash of the Japanese cult favorite Battle Royale. It's a larger story of oppression and rebellion.
The Vanishing City: a movie review
All of these communities have felt the impact and hardships of the city's re-zoning and development laws.
Movies you might have missed: "Thieves' Highway"
One noir film that dealt with explicitly working-class issues was Thieves' Highway (1949) starring Richard Conte in perhaps his finest role.
Movies you might have missed: "Mondays in the Sun"
Despite the often-depressing vignettes of the characters' plight, the story is ultimately one of the pride and dignity of the working class.
Movies you might have missed: "I Am Twenty"
Soviet filmmakers were often criticized in the West for producing stories sneeringly termed "boy gets tractor, meets girl."
New film from China on the horrors of the "Rape of Nanking"
What the Japanese militarists did to China is a story that every Chinese person knows well, but, I think, not so much in the West.
