MOVIE REVIEWS (1): THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Reviews have begun to trickle in for this weekend’s much anticipated The Dark Knight Rises, and some of them are as extravagant in their praise as audiences are expected to be in their spending. In the Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy calls the movie a “blockbuster by any standard. … “[The] Batman trilogy makes everything in […]

CRITICS: OSCARS AMOUNT TO TEDIUM TV

Film critics wasted no time banging out reviews of Sunday night’s Oscars, with several of them posting their assessments of the affair within minutes after the ceremonies concluded. Indeed, Daily Variety‘s Brian Lowry posted his (negative) review of Billy Crystal’s opening as if he were racing a legion of tweeters. Actually, many of the reviews […]

MERYL STREEP’S THATCHER HAILED BY BRITISH CRITICS

Any worries about whether the British moviegoing public would accept an American actress, Meryl Streep, playing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were laid to rest today (Tuesday) as the first U.K. comments about The Iron Lady appeared in the London press. The London Daily Mirror had already commented that Street plays Thatcher “to perfection.” Xan […]

CRITICS SPLIT OVER SPIELBERG’S TINTIN

Steven Spielberg’s plan was, from the beginning, to open his latest epic, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, in Europe before bringing it to America. The film is based on a comics character beloved overseas but virtually unknown in the U.S. Spielberg’s hope, it was said, was to establish the movie as […]

WUTHERING HEIGHTS WITH BLACK HEATHCLIFF PREMIERES IN VENICE

A new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has premiered at the Venice Film Festival, with two black actors playing the role of Heathcliff, the role originally made famous by Laurence Olivier in the 1939 version of the novel. Solomon Glave plays him as a boy and James Howson, as a young man. Writer-director Andrea […]

U.K. SPY THRILLER HAILED AT VENICE FILM FEST

Critics have poured gushing praise on the movie version of John Le Carré’s spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which was presented in competition Monday at the Venice Film Festival. “The film is a triumph,” wrote David Gritten in the London Telegraph. “It’s the film to beat at this year’s festival,” said Xan Brooks of […]