Ty Burr Movie Reviews - Boston.com

Inside the minds of Israel’s gatekeepers

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:22:58 GMT

**** The Gatekeepers In Dror Moreh’s stunning documentary — one of this year’s Oscar nominees in the category — a handful of grizzled old men talk openly about their experiences running Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service. It plays a little like “Zero Dark Thirty” as directed by Errol Morris. In Hebrew, with subtitles. (95 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

A Korean horror visionary goes Hollywood in ‘Stoker’

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:37:54 GMT

*** Stoker An uncredited psychosexual remake of Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt,” with Mia Wasikowska as a young woman whose charming, evil Uncle Charles (Matthew Goode) comes to visit. Korean cult director Park Chan-wook makes his Hollywood debut, and the movie’s stunningly shot and deeply creepy before the script Explains Everything at the end. With Nicole Kidman. (98 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Unnerving ‘Rubberneck’ deserves a look

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:30:21 GMT

**1/2 Rubberneck Alex Karpovsky, best known as Ray in HBO’s “Girls,” co-writes, directs, and stars in an unnerving little number about a shy Cambridge lab tech obsessed with a co-worker (Jaime Ray Newman). Half suspense drama and half brooding character study, the film has a low-budget feel and a strong dash of local flavor. (84 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

With best picture Oscar, Ben Affleck comeback is complete

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:08:01 GMT

It’s official: We’ve got our Ben back. And, good Lord, what he had to put us through, and go through, to get here. The 15-year arc of Ben Affleck’s career — from brash young talent to overexposed movie star to tabloid celebrity to Most Ridiculed Man in Showbiz and all the way back to humble yet triumphant cinematic craftsman — is one of the most singular round trips in American pop culture history. With Sunday night’s best picture Oscar win for “Argo,” which caps a victory tour of other awards shows, the passage is complete. Affleck has gone from the pit of pop scorn to the apex of Hollywood respect. He has arrived. Again.

Truthiness and consequences

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 04:18:45 GMT

At the Oscars this year, notions of fidelity in storytelling are on the front burner this year as never before, with pundits and moviegoers hashing out the niceties. The controversy over the interrogation scenes in “Zero Dark Thirty” is well documented, but “Lincoln” screenwriter Tony Kushner has also been called upon to defend his dramatic distortions after taking a pasting in the press from US Representative Joe Courtney, Democrat of Connecticut. “Argo” director Ben Affleck “rewrites history” according to the headline of a Canadian magazine article condemning the movie’s downplaying of the role played by ambassador Ken Taylor. Quentin Tarantino takes lumps over the historical accuracy of the N-word in “Django Unchained.”

‘John Dies’ goes from head trip to unhinged

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:55:15 GMT

**1/2 John Dies at the End A loopy slacker horror farce that wants to play with your head — and time, and space, and paranoid conspiracy theories — so badly that it doesn’t care about making sense. Which doesn’t stop it from being a pretty good bad time, preferably when seen after midnight. Directed by Don Coscarelli from David Wong’s cult novel. (99 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Fever dream ‘Tabu’ has ties to Murnau film

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:04:17 GMT

In modern-day Lisbon, a woman (Teresa Madruga) listens to a tale of an adulterous affair that takes place in colonial Mozambique and features Ana Moreira and Carloto Cotta as sexy but delusional lovers. Portugal’s Miguel Gomes has made a black-and-white fever dream whose undertow sucks you in as often as it strands you on shore. In Portuguese, with subtitles. (118 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

‘Beautiful Creatures’ conjures a little magic, lots of mischief

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:21:15 GMT

**1/2 Beautiful Creatures A teenage boy (Alden Ehrenreich) discovers his new girlfriend (Alice Englert) is a witch. Adapted from the first of four “Caster Chronicles” novels, but it may play better if you’re not a convert. As “Twilight” knock-offs go, this has its pleasures, mischievous banter and two happy hams named Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson among them. (124 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Now is a good time to retire ‘Die Hard’

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:41:43 GMT

*1/2 A Good Day to Die Hard It took 25 years and five films, but the “Die Hard” series has finally devolved into joyless sludge. John McClane (Bruce Willis) travels to Moscow to rescue his son (Jai Courtney) and gets caught up in Kremlin mayhem. The movie has two problems: It’s terribly directed and it makes no sense. (97 min., R) (Ty Burr)

‘Beautiful Creatures’ conjures a little magic, lots of mischief

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:46:02 GMT

‘Thief ’ steals Melissa McCarthy’s thunder

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 21:11:13 GMT

* Identity Thief All the good will Melissa McCarthy earned from “Bridesmaids” is undone in an obnoxious comedy made worse by obnoxious sentimentality. She’s a credit-card-fraud artist, Jason Bateman is her uptight victim, and the two hit the road together. Unfunny, vulgar, predictable, it’s the generic equivalent of a Judd Apatow movie. (108 min., R) (Ty Burr)

At 56, Michael Apted’s kids are holding up well

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:49:51 GMT

***1/2 56 UP The latest installment of this groundbreaking documentary series represents a bit of a holding pattern. The 13 British men and women who have been filmed at seven-year-intervals since they were 7 are now in the space between middle age and old age, and they want us to know they’re not dead yet. Essential viewing nonetheless. (144 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Sex, lies, and prescription drugs in ‘Side Effects’

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:23:53 GMT

*** Side Effects A sleekly clever murder mystery that plays as many games with the audience as it does with its characters. Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum play a married couple, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jude Law play psychiatrists, somebody ends up dead. In the end, though, it’s just a genre exercise and evidence that director Steven Soderbergh is getting bored. (106 min., R) (Ty Burr)

The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentaries

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:41:29 GMT

**** The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentaries Homeless teens, women with breast cancer, Rwandan children in dire need of heart surgery -- in theory, this year’s nominated shorts promise compassion fatigue. In practice, they’re inspiring in the toughest, most moving ways. “Inocente” is the stand-out, but they’re all good. In English, Spanish, Rwandan, Italian, with subtitles. (Program A, 123 min.; Program B, 83 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated and Live Action

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:35:32 GMT

*** The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated and Live Action As advertised, the 10 films vying for Academy Awards in the animated and live-action shorts categories. While there are few knockouts, it’s an impressive group, with “Paperman” the most charming of the animated shorts and “Henry” the most affecting of the live-action. (animated, 40 min.; live action, 96 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Al Pacino, Christopher Walken can’t lift ‘Stand Up Guys’

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:13:55 GMT

1/2 * Stand Up Guys Al Pacino and Christopher Walken as a pair of aging criminals having a final night on the town. It’s not a bad idea: Let two acting lions just riff and to hell with a plot. Too bad Fisher Stevens’s tone-deaf direction and a creepily misogynistic script push the movie right over a cliff. With Alan Arkin. (100 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Movie review: ‘Warm Bodies’

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:42:16 GMT

*** Warm Bodies A zombie date flick that has its “Twilight” and makes fun of it too, thanks to a cheeky screenplay and tart direction by Jonathan Levine (“50/50”). Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer play a zombie lad and a living girl who fall for each other after the apocalypse. It’s silly, often funny, and surprisingly sweet. (97 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

‘Movie 43’: Shock and aw, geez

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:14:38 GMT

*1/2 Movie 43 A wearyingly gross shock-comedy omnibus that’s loaded with A-list stars and every bodily fluid imaginable. Naturally, there’s a Farrelly brother involved — Peter, who produced, co-wrote, co-directed, and generally acts as ringmaster. Actors hoodwinked into playing along include Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, and Richard Gere. The shock is mostly in seeing them here. (90 min., R) (Ty Burr)

A noteworthy cast lifts Hoffman’s ‘Quartet’

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:11:04 GMT

**1/2 Quartet From first-time director Dustin Hoffman, a sweet-tempered, rather fuddly drama about retired British opera singers, less slick than the vaguely similar “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and better for it. Maggie Smith gets to go glam as a famous soprano who has lost her gift; Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, and Pauline Collins provide support. A minor treat. (98 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

‘A Liar’s Autobiography,’ narrated by its own (deceased) subject

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:09:40 GMT

** A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman And now for something completely different: an animated multi-chapter documentary life story that is narrated by its own subject, Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, who has been inconveniently dead for 23 years, and who’s probably making it all up anyway. For Python completists only. (85 min., R) (Ty Burr)

‘Amour’ bears witness to an awful — and intimate — truth

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 21:45:44 GMT

A simple yet devastatingly profound story of an elderly French couple (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) during the long, squalid months of the wife’s decline. Writer-director Michael Haneke (“Caché”) observes his subject with an unadorned style that takes on aspects of the holy. The movie avoids melodrama; instead, it’s just extraordinarily intimate. In French, with subtitles. (127 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Breaking and exiting

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:05:54 GMT

A cluttered, formulaic urban thriller, with Mark Wahlberg miscast as a conflicted tough-guy detective caught in an election week conspiracy. The best thing here — i.e., the most enjoyably bad — is Russell Crowe as a greasy, macho New York City mayor. He’s Michael Bloomberg’s evil twin. With Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jeffrey Wright. (109 min., R) (Ty Burr)

The shorter side of Sundance

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:30:26 GMT

2012 Sundance Shorts If collections of film shorts are like party mixes, this program has a few too many questionable wasabi peas. The two longest shorts — “Fishing Without Nets,” about Somali pirates, and “The Return,” a heart wrencher from Kosovo — are the best; the rest are interesting without being particularly engaging. (95 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Jodie Foster speaks out

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:25:51 GMT

So what exactly

‘Lincoln’ leads Oscar nominations

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:25:06 GMT

Heavy favorites were snubbed, independent visions celebrated, and both the youngest and oldest candidates for Best Actress in Oscar history were named as contenders when the nominees for the

Ty Burr Movie Reviews - Boston.com

Inside the minds of Israel’s gatekeepers

A Korean horror visionary goes Hollywood in ‘Stoker’

Unnerving ‘Rubberneck’ deserves a look

With best picture Oscar, Ben Affleck comeback is complete

Truthiness and consequences

‘John Dies’ goes from head trip to unhinged

Fever dream ‘Tabu’ has ties to Murnau film

‘Beautiful Creatures’ conjures a little magic, lots of mischief

Now is a good time to retire ‘Die Hard’

‘Beautiful Creatures’ conjures a little magic, lots of mischief

‘Thief ’ steals Melissa McCarthy’s thunder

At 56, Michael Apted’s kids are holding up well

Sex, lies, and prescription drugs in ‘Side Effects’

The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Documentaries

Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013: Animated and Live Action

Al Pacino, Christopher Walken can’t lift ‘Stand Up Guys’

Movie review: ‘Warm Bodies’

‘Movie 43’: Shock and aw, geez

A noteworthy cast lifts Hoffman’s ‘Quartet’

‘A Liar’s Autobiography,’ narrated by its own (deceased) subject

‘Amour’ bears witness to an awful ­­— and intimate — truth

Breaking and exiting

The shorter side of Sundance

Jodie Foster speaks out

‘Lincoln’ leads Oscar nominations

‘Amour’ bears witness to an awful — and intimate — truth