Movie review by Greg Carlson Gordon Gekko’s release from prison, thoroughly documented in the trailer of “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” takes place near the beginning of the film and provides the gag that also serves as the movie’s clearest link between past and present: the return of Gekko’s Motorola DynaTac 8000X, a bulky relic […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Ben Affleck returns to Boston in “The Town,” a generically titled reference to armed bank robbery academy Charlestown, the gentrified neighborhood that tough Irish mobsters once called home. Based on Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel “Prince of Thieves,” “The Town” swings hard for Fenway’s Green Monster, and its pastiche of blue-collar […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Bleak, laconic and as chilling as its title, “Winter’s Bone” shares a rarely seen snapshot of American poverty and despair in rural Missouri. Based on Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel, director Debra Granik’s adaptation exchanges Woodrell’s poetry – which can feel simultaneously sinewy and rawboned – with a more lived-in realism […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Legendary music video director and rock photographer Anton Corbijn’s second foray into feature filmmaking presents George Clooney as “The American.” Loosely based on Martin Booth’s 1990 novel “A Very Private Gentleman,” the movie delights in subverting action, espionage, and thriller genre expectations by way of a stylistic monasticism that withholds […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A much better than expected genre outing, “The Last Exorcism” trades William Peter Blatty’s Jesuits for a Louisiana evangelical, but the battlefield is still the body of a young girl, and the thrills are plentiful. Every demonic possession movie made since 1973 owes a bottomless debt to “The Exorcist,” and […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Noomi Rapace returns as compelling hacker Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” the mostly disappointing sequel to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” The second story in the late Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” trades the missing person mystery of the first […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Edgar Wright capitalizes on his cult status as an expert craftsman of clever, pop culture-referencing entertainment with “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” a bubblegum fantasy of young adulthood adapted from Bryan Lee O’Malley’s illustrated saga. Blending video game culture, garage rock music, and the manga-inspired style of O’Malley’s fetching drawings, […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Another kaleidoscopic, anything-goes parody/satire from goofball pals Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, “The Other Guys” is the least structured of the comic team’s collaborations, and arguably the weakest. As pencil-pushing NYC police officer Allen Gamble, Ferrell trades his finely tuned sense of outrageous indignation and bullheaded machismo for a stab […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko regularly cooks up dramatic conflict by introducing the threat of a newcomer or stranger into the daily grind of characters whose lives require some sort of jolt. In “The Kids Are All Right,” viewers can expect another of the director’s sunny Southern California soap operas. An indelicate […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Filmmaker Juan Jose Campanella, who works regularly in both Argentina and the United States, crafts an engrossing blend of detective procedural, legal thriller, and romance in “The Secret in Their Eyes,” winner of the 2009 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. The movie is based on Eduardo Sacheri’s (slightly) differently […]