Movie review by Greg Carlson A stunning visual feast boasting strong performances from its attractive quartet of leading actors, “Hero” finally makes its American debut this week as a theatrically released feature. Fans of wuxia have been trading imported and bootleg DVD copies of the movie for many months, often speaking with reverent awe about […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “Before Sunset” is one of busy filmmaker Richard Linklater’s most deeply felt and satisfying movies. A real-time sequel to 1995’s “Before Sunrise,” (the uber-undergraduate backpacker in Europe fantasy) the new work is simply astonishing throughout its entirely concise 80-minute running time. Wistful and occasionally heartbreaking, “Before Sunset” is the rarest […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson If one maintains sufficiently low expectations going in, “Alien vs. Predator” is not a completely terrible sci-fi slugfest. Because Twentieth Century Fox opted out of advanced screenings of the film, critics everywhere assumed that a turkey, and not a face-hugger, would be hatching out of the slimy egg laid by […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Director Michael Mann straddles a line occupied by very few commercial filmmakers, placing his own visionary stamp on scripts that might otherwise be handled with conventional banality. Like some of his best work, “Collateral” merely uses the urban crime genre – with a bit of police procedural thrown in for […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson A thoroughly disjointed collection of weird sketches and odd circumstances revolving around a superbly awkward teenager navigating high school hell, “Napoleon Dynamite” bursts with a remarkable gift for observational detail.  Already drawing frequent comparisons to Todd Solondz (accurate) and Wes Anderson (not so accurate), first time feature director Jared Hess […]