Movie review by Greg Carlson Finbar McBride, played with incredible depth and charm by the marvelous Peter Dinklage, stands just under four and a half feet tall.  As the central character in writer-director Thomas McCarthy’s “The Station Agent,” Fin spends a great deal of time avoiding people in order to spare himself the indignities of […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Writer-turned-director Richard Curtis, the romantic comedy machine who cranked out the screenplays for “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” seems so smitten with his own cleverness that he forgets to offer his audience any opportunity to catch its breath during “Love Actually,” the filmmaker’s horribly-titled […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson When popular SNL alum Will Ferrell left the show for the treacherous waters of feature filmmaking, he followed a long line of performers whose careers have met with varying degrees of success. For every Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray and Mike Myers there are dozens of black holes representing the likes […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Jane Campion’s movies are always interesting to watch, even when they don’t entirely satisfy the expectations of her ardent fans. This is once again the case with the director’s latest work, an adaptation of a Susanna Moore novel starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo. “In the Cut” struggles to transcend […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Professional V.A. hospital file clerk and underground comics legend Harvey Pekar is the subject of “American Splendor,” a phenomenal film that recounts his life story after the fashion of Pekar’s own autobiographical comic book series. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini trust in Pekar’s potent personality enough to blend […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Mystic River,” Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel, is certain to receive at least a handful of important nominations come award season.  Selected to kick off the New York Film Festival, Eastwood’s movie is a careful, meditative study of loss and pain so somber and grim the entire […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Kill Bill: Vol. 1,” the first film from Quentin Tarantino since “Jackie Brown” in 1997, is an audacious return to form for the egomaniacal filmmaker. In his movie performances (thankfully absent in “Bill”), his press interviews, and his TV appearances, Tarantino inevitably comes off as a braying, boorish big-mouth. Fortunately […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson It’s not like Richard Linklater, the indie auteur that many film geeks worshiped for “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused” and reviled for “Before Sunrise” and “The Newton Boys,” hasn’t tried to be a commercial success before now – the timing and marketing of his movies for mainstream audiences just wasn’t […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Even though Danny DeVito was not the first director selected for helming duties on “Duplex” (he replaced Greg Mottola), the movie certainly resonates with the macabre sensibility of some of the director’s earlier, better work, like “Throw Momma From the Train” and “The War of the Roses.” DeVito, who is […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Woody Allen is so reliably prolific as a writer-director of New York City-based tales of cosmic humiliations and bittersweet relationships, seeing one of his films is often like pulling on a comfortable, well-worn sweater. Even when his newer work fails to live up to the spectacular golden age that delivered […]