Feature: “The Bait” (2009), “Cheaper to Keep Her” (2011), “Cowboys & Aliens” (2011), “The Debt” (2010), “Design for Living” (1933), “The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy: Extended Edition” (various dates), “Elvira’s Movie Macabre:…
The Sound of Music Sing-along: The Castro Theatre has been doing sing-alongs to musicals for a decade or so, and the 1965 box office champ and best picture winner starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and a lot…
RATING: (WILD APPLAUSE) In the early 1930s, there was a brief trend in morally subversive horror, films that suggested a godless or malevolent universe. “Dracula” started the trend, though his fear of the cross at least…
RATING: (WILD APPLAUSE) Most film buffs know Kaneto Shindô for “Onibaba,” his 1964 masterpiece about a mother and daughter-in-law in medieval times who are forced to kill wandering samurai, selling their belongings for…
RATING: (ALERT VIEWER) Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 Amateurish in direction and confused in its writing (unless you’ve read the Ayn Rand novel you’ll be lost), this low-budget feature, though at times a preachy right-wing…
RATING: (WILD APPLAUSE) With producers Tony and Ridley Scott leading the charge, this is the best depiction of the Civil War I have ever seen, capturing the absolute horror of the most costly battle ever fought on…
RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE) Cars 2 This sequel to the 2006 Pixar animation comedy im-proves on the original with a spy story (involving a conspiracy of famous lemons) and the casting of Michael Caine as a British agent….
Brainstorm: This late film noir, from 1965, is one brilliant, twisted movie.
Pauline Kael, who reviewed movies for the The New Yorker for many years, was considered by many to be the goddess of film critics. Her comments on movies were both insightful and controversial.