Movie review by Greg Carlson Observant and sincere, James Ponsoldt’s adaptation of Tim Tharp’s “The Spectacular Now” is quieter and more naturalistic than the recent version of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower, another novel-to-film coming of age story willing and eager to treat its teenage characters with sensitivity and respect. Both stories deal substantially […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Next to the events that inspired it, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s “Blackfish” is the worst kind of public relations nightmare for marine park giant SeaWorld Entertainment. Systematically documenting and dismantling years of questionable practices and dubious assertions about orcas, the gripping film uses an array of footage, from degraded old television spots […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson An engrossing and thoughtful look at the backup singers whose voices grace some of the most familiar recordings of popular music, “Twenty Feet from Stardom” is certainly a must-see for rock fans. Tracing the enormous and all too often unheralded contributions of the supremely talented vocalists whose job requirement more […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The tremendous Cate Blanchett supplies a tour-de-force performance in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” a Blanche DuBois meets Bernie Madoff moral tale that represents one of the writer-director’s strongest and most sustained efforts since 2005’s “Match Point.” Allen’s ever-prolific late period contains more clunkers than gems, but the misfires (“To Rome […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson An embarrassing, half-baked product that stands in diametric opposition to the stamp of quality and user experience demanded of its subject on his company’s game-changing devices, “Jobs” is not the biopic Apple fanatics, or anyone else for that matter, wanted or needed. Director Joshua Michael Stern violates every law of […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson In the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III was shot and killed by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, California. The incident was captured on several cell phone cameras while the train […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Writer-director Maggie Carey’s feature film debut “The To Do List” has received attention for gender-inverting the common masculinity of the “pursuit of sexual experience” trope that has fueled the plots of several raunchy comedies including “Porky’s,” “The Last American Virgin,” and “American Pie.” “The To Do List” is not the […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Based on a popular 2007 novel by Jan Costin Wagner, German-made “The Silence” is an ambitious, accomplished procedural significantly more restrained and purposeful than the majority of its American counterparts. Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Baran bo Odar, the film juggles a potentially precarious number of characters and interlocking storylines […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A safe and toothless coming-of-age story that leisurely juggles a teenage love triangle, a strained father-son relationship, and all the “how to be a man” cliches that go along with the genre territory, “The Kings of Summer” uses several of the same key components explored to more satisfying and sophisticated […]