Movie review by Greg Carlson Written as a gag by John Silveira for Backwoods Home Magazine in 1997, a short classified advertisement read, “Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A period comedy riffing on the highly fictionalized origins of the vibrator, “Hysteria” musters a few chuckles at the outrageousness of its subject matter without ever being outrageous itself. Sidestepping any and all opportunity to thoughtfully investigate the gender inequalities of the Victorian age, Tanya Wexler’s movie instead focuses on […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Alighting only a decade after Sam Raimi’s big budget feature and a mere five years since the awful conclusion of the trilogy (if you want to call it that), director Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” simply refuses to be described by critics without some measure of comparison to the 2002 […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson While Steven Soderbergh continues to postpone his self-proclaimed “retirement” to the surprise of absolutely nobody who goes to the movies, “Magic Mike” marks another curious title in the director’s eclectic filmography. Also known as the male stripper movie loosely inspired by star Channing Tatum’s own experiences, “Magic Mike” echoes any […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Pixar has passed the Bechdel Test before, perhaps most notably in “The Incredibles,” a movie that still contends with problematic gender norms and stereotyping, but “Brave” is the first of the studio’s features to place a female protagonist – and a mother-daughter relationship – at the very heart of the […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson When Ridley Scott disingenuously began claiming that “Prometheus” was not, in fact, a prologue to his much loved and imitated “Alien,” the desired result within the community of fanatics (to whom these things matter a great deal) was a steep increase in curiosity about the nature of his big-budget, large-scale […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A beautiful, wistful, half-real, half-imagined love affair between a pair of twelve-year-olds, “Moonrise Kingdom” is Wes Anderson’s seventh feature film and one of the finest movies of the year. Distilling nearly every one of the director’s principal thematic and stylistic concerns, “Moonrise Kingdom” matches the bittersweet blend of comedy and […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Following Tarsem Singh’s “Mirror Mirror” as the second live-action adaptation of the classic fairy tale to be released in 2012, “Snow White and the Huntsman” musters very little novelty in what turns out to be an unnecessary, unlovable slog through the enchanted forest. Dressed up as an epic adventure that […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson It’s not surprising that the support group Friends of Chernobyl Centers, U.S. has raised awareness by criticizing the cheap horror movie “Chernobyl Diaries,” a tired genre exercise with action so routine one imagines its producers reluctant to see it open anywhere near “The Cabin in the Woods,” a movie that […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Less successful than “Borat” and “Bruno,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s “The Dictator” trades the ambush mockumentary for the more predictable terrain of fully-scripted narrative. Opening with a dedication to Kim Jong-il, Baron Cohen and director/regular collaborator Larry Charles establish Admiral General Hafez Aladeen, the ruler of the fictional North African Republic […]