Movie review by Greg Carlson Jehane Noujaim’s vivid recontextualization of the 2011 demonstrations that led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt forms the basis and the beginning of Academy Award nominee “The Square.” Through the eyes of those who participated in the protests that came to be known as part of the Arab […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson David O. Russell continues to expand his interest in a kind of contemporary screwball comedy with “American Hustle,” a tremendously funny con that manages to simultaneously conjure “The Philadelphia Story” and “The Sting” by way of “Goodfellas.” As messy, ridiculous, and elaborate as the wild comb-over worn by Christian Bale’s […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Cutie and the Boxer,” filmmaker Zachary Heinzerling’s portrait of married artists Noriko and Ushio Shinohara, largely refrains from passing judgment on the quality of the work produced by the two New York City residents. Instead, the documentarian takes advantage of his proximity and access to navigate a messy, psychologically complex […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Since his 1999 feature debut “Being John Malkovich,” Spike Jonze has established himself as one of the most gifted and intelligent visual stylists working in the cinematic medium. Jonze’s latest, “Her,” is only the director’s fourth feature and is the first full-length original screenplay credited solely to the auteur. An […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson An exuberant and emotionally involving portrait of rock star Kathleen Hanna sure to please longtime fans while making plenty of new ones, Sini Anderson’s “The Punk Singer” joins a crowded slate of terrific music-oriented documentaries released in 2013. The filmmaker’s friendship with the outspoken leader of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, working with co-directors Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian who, like so many other of the unnamed collaborators listed in the credits, elected to withhold identity out of personal fear, labored for half a decade on the brutal and brilliant “The Act of Killing.” A singular non-fiction […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Inside Llewyn Davis” echoes several pet concerns previously explored by Joel and Ethan Coen in their impressive body of work. Exquisite period detail evocative of a romanticized past, the struggle for some degree of personal integrity in a marketplace geared toward the lowest common denominator, and a trippy Homeric odyssey […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The monochromatic landscapes of Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” capture the open fields of America during a quixotic father-son road trip in which nothing and everything happens all at once. Bob Nelson’s screenplay introduces Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) shambling along the side of the road in Billings, Montana. Armed with a sweepstakes […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson In the opening scene of Ulrich Seidl’s “Paradise: Love,” the Austrian filmmaker presents a series of vehicle-mounted shots focused on the faces of people with developmental disabilities as they careen around in bumper cars. Smashing into one another, their expressions run the gamut of highly intensified human emotion as Seidl […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Things move so quickly in the digital age that documentaries on contemporary Internet politics are risky business for diligent filmmakers committed to quality research. Alex Gibney, whose “Taxi to the Dark Side” earned the 2007 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, is as good as any non-fiction storyteller working today, and […]