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Factory Reject

By J. Hoberman

Published: February 20, 2008

Danny Williams, subject of Esther Robinson's documentary portrait A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory , was a '60s casualty. A Harvard dropout from an old New England...

Film

Saying Goodbye To Two Giants of Cinema

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007); Michelangelo Antonioni (1913-2007)

By J. Hoberman

Published: August 8, 2007

Ingmar Bergman directed more than 50 features, but he was a significant figure in 20th-century culture in part because he was so obviously significant. Last week's inch-above-the-fold front-page...

Film

Man Down

Werner Herzog takes his hero worship Hollywood

By J. Hoberman

Published: July 11, 2007

Nothing if not appropriate for summer blockbuster season, Werner Herzog's latest feature, based on his 1997 documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly , offers a suitably fantastic tale of war,...

Film

Dr. Feelgood

Michael Moore's pill goes down easy, but his diagnosis of U.S. healthcare still devastates

By J. Hoberman

Published: June 27, 2007

"We're Americans. We go into other countries when we need to. It's tricky, but it works." So declares Michael Moore in the midst of his new documentary, Sicko . Moore may be riffing on the war in...

Film

Mighty Heart, Mightier Spotlight

Angelina Jolie kidnaps Daniel Pearl's movie

By J. Hoberman

Published: June 20, 2007

A skilled actor vanishes into a role; a movie star appropriates it. As presence trumps character, the star personifies Brecht's alienation effect, and whatever its ostensible subject, the movie...

Film

The Mystery of the Tween Demo

Bringing smarty back, Nancy Drew returns for another generation of young consumers

By J. Hoberman

Published: June 13, 2007

So lame it's ... cool? Nancy Drew , writer-director Andrew Fleming's attempt to jump-start a new Warner Bros. franchise, is a movie flaunting a most obvious demographic strategy — a teen...

Film

The House Always Wins

Ocean's Thirteen is a washed-up threequel. How much you wanna bet Hollywood makes a bundle?

By J. Hoberman

Published: June 6, 2007

Lowest Common Denominator-ism writ large and engraved in stone like the Ten Commandments according to Cecil B. DeMille, the Hollywood blockbuster is often an allegory for itself. Walt Disney, the...

Film

America Cannes

Art imitates life as U.S. directors command this year's fest, with only China rivaling for celluloid domination.

By J. Hoberman

Published: May 30, 2007

CANNES, France—The world's preeminent film festival celebrated its 60th birthday party — the opening banquet catered by the world's hippest, or is that once-hippest? — filmmaker....

Film

Palm d'Hoberman

Our one-man jury bestows honors on the best of Cannes 2007.

By J. Hoberman

Published: May 30, 2007

Cannes, France — Sometimes the competition is actually competitive. No one disputes that the official section at the 60th Cannes Film Festival has been the strongest in recent memory. The...

Film

Cannes d'Awards

Foreign films dominate this year at Cannes.

By J. Hoberman

Published: May 30, 2007

Cannes, France — The 60th Cannes Film Festival was a generous one — and so was its jury, bestowing the Palme d'Or on the least heralded, most critically acclaimed movie in an unusually...

Film

What We Talk About When We Talk About Suffocation

Everyone suffers in Jindabyne, a Raymond Carver adaptation and study in unresolved tension

By J. Hoberman

Published: May 9, 2007

Mystery man of the long-ago Australian new wave, Ray Lawrence has evidently grown less finicky. Lawrence, now 59, made his feature debut with the phantasmagoric Bliss , famous flop of the 1985...

Film

Appointment in Samarra

Dealing head-on with Bush's War, thriller dissects Iraqi unrest and nails the neocons

By J. Hoberman

Published: March 28, 2007

The Situation , Philip Haas's deftly-paced, well-written, and brilliantly infuriating Iraq War thriller is not only the strongest of recent geopolitical hotspot flicks but one that has been...

Film

Wild at Heart

Armed with his own brand of logic and a digital camera, David Lynch forges inward

By J. Hoberman

Published: February 7, 2007

No director works closer to his unconscious than David Lynch, and, stimulated by the use of amateur digital video technology, his latest feature ventures as far inland as this blandly enigmatic...

Film

Heavy Weather

Intimate Turkish drama chronicles a rocky relationship

By J. Hoberman

Published: January 24, 2007

A terrific movie in the Antonioni tradition, Climates confirms 47-year-old Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan as one of the world's most accomplished filmmakers — handling the end of a...

Film

Ace Up His Sleeve

Joe Carnahan's overly slick, heavily edited dark comedy works despite itself

By J. Hoberman

Published: January 24, 2007

New-school genre junk food: Take a Tarantino wannabe with Sundance credentials, add a large, famous-enough cast and a show-biz backdrop, season the violence with references to Sergio Leone and...

Film

Magic Touch

Fantastical meets political in this stunning for-adults-only fairy tale

By J. Hoberman

Published: December 27, 2006

Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth is something alchemical. To an astonishing degree, the 42-year-old Mexican filmmaker best known for his contribution to the Blade and...

Film

Don't Believe the Hype

Despite a nonexistent marketing campaign, Cuarón's latest is not to be missed

By J. Hoberman

Published: December 20, 2006

History repeats itself: Eleven Decembers ago, Universal had the season's strongest movie, a downbeat sci-fi flick freely adapted from a well-known source by a name director. With a bare minimum of...

Film

Nostalgia Trip

Steven Soderbergh tries, and largely fails, to make 'em like they used to

By J. Hoberman

Published: December 20, 2006

The Good German , directed by Steven Soderbergh from Joseph Kanon's best-seller, is as much simulation as movie. Specifically, it's the simulation of a 1940s private eye flick. It's not just a...

Film

Mel Gibson Is Responsible for All the Wars in the World

OK, slight exaggeration. But he's at least to blame for this one.

By J. Hoberman

Published: December 6, 2006

Apocalypto has a faux Greek title and an opening quote from historian Will Durant that ruminates on the decline of imperial Rome. It may seem an odd way to comment on the supposed end of an...

Film

Fountain of Shame

That Darren Aronofsky sure is ambitious. Too bad his movie makes no sense.

By J. Hoberman

Published: November 22, 2006

Solemn, flashy, and flabbergasting, The Fountain — adapted by Darren Aronofsky from his own graphic novel — should really be called The Shpritz . The premise is lachrymose, the sets...