Recent Reviews

In 1988, three gray whales found themselves trapped under the ice off the coast of Alaska, namely the tiny, top-of-the-Earth town of Point Barrow. To further complicate matters, the whales’ path to the ocean was blocked by an enormous ice ridge. Panicky and exhausted, the whales were forced to surface through a small hole in the ice that allowed them to breathe. As the temperatures dropped, it became increasingly clear that even this hole would freeze over, dooming the whales to death by suffocation.

It’s always a bit puzzling when a character in a movie decides to spend a considerable amount of time in a house that we know is haunted. Such situations — common enough in horror movies — put the audience a couple of steps ahead of the characters and tend to turn horror films into predetermined rituals that deliver their shocks with time-table efficiency.

Prior to a late-evening screening of Chronicle — the uncustomary hour of 9 p.m. — I checked for a rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No point heading for the multiplex at such an odd hour for a movie that promised to do nothing more than add to my already extensive file of big-screen disappointment.

If a movie puts a man who’s threatening to take the big leap from a ledge some 200 feet above a New York City sidewalk, it’s reasonable to expect that some tension will follow.

In the new movie The Grey, Liam Neeson dances with wolves that, for the most part, get the best of a band of grizzled oil rig workers who are stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a harrowing plane crash.

Albert Nobbs is a reserved, pleasant little drama featuring a sterling performance by Glenn Close.

There are beautifully acted scenes in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the big-screen adaptation of a 2008 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, and the best of them can’t be written about in detail without including string of spoilers that might dilute the impact of a tear-jerker built around the residual pain of 9/11.

Few things are as resistant to upset as the apple cart of parental expectation. And for some middle-class families, coming to terms with a child’s gayness can qualify as a threat to deeply entrenched values.

Gina Carano makes Haywire worth seeing.

Haywire is a sprightly little action flick from director Steven Soderbergh. It’s the kind of modest endeavor that manages to create a credible, likable protagonist while telling a tale of assassins and covert agents with a strong sense of understated humor.

The moment I saw Meryl Streep’s meticulously aged and slightly unrecognizable face in Iron Lady, two words inevitably leaped to mind: Oscar nomination. This isn’t necessarily Streep’s fault, but thoughts of future encomiums automatically seem to crop up whenever Streep appears in a movie that requires an accent.

There are two ways to look at a movie such as Contraband. As a hard-boiled thriller compared to dozens of other similar movies, it’s not exactly a groundbreaker. If, on the other hand, you’re prone to seasonal generosity, you may want to regard Contraband as a serviceable entertainment, particularly for those seeking a quick genre fix.

In the Land of Blood and Honey is an impressive piece of work from first-time director Angelina Jolie.

I admit it. I sometimes became confused watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a big-screen adaptation of John Le Carre’s 1974 novel. Frustrating? Yes, but there also were times when I found the movie so atmospherically right I didn’t care whether I could dot every “i” or cross every “t” in Le Carre’s labyrinthine plot.

Sometimes at a film festival or in the company of a particularly interesting filmmaker, I have been fortunate enough to experience something akin to what I imagine audiences felt during the silent era, a sense of child-like wonder at the special felicities associated with the moving imagine — from a quickening of the pulse to the breaking of a heart.

First, it was a book by Michael Morpurgo. Then it was a play by Nick Stafford, a theatrical showpiece that featured giant horse puppets. Now, it’s a movie by Steven Spielberg.