Track premiere: Good Old War “It Hurts Every Time”
Lost Memories: Our 10 favorite amnesia movies
Call-In Commentary: Watch the “Rampart” trailer with writer-director Oren Moverman
The rise of the film critic filmmaker
Will Ferrell is, of course, a world class screen actor, but if you only pay attention to his movies, you’re missing some of his best work. When he’s not busy starring in surprisingly moving indie dramedies or all-Spanish soap operas, he’s usually off somewhere, doing something weird, with cameras in tow. In light of last…
You don’t just become the Worst Actress of the Century overnight. It takes years of hard work and crummy performances. That’s why Madonna is the Queen of Pop and the Queen of Razzies, where she’s been nominated a staggering sixteen times, taking home nine different Golden Raspberry Awards — NINE!! — including five Worst Actress…
Say what you will about Matthew Broderick’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”-inspired ad for Honda, but it got everyone talking about his 1986 debut as the slacker hero. Given the response (mostly positive) to the ad across just about every online social network, it’s safe to say that “Matthew’s Day Off” will go down as a…
Who says you can’t go home again? If home is a popular movie franchise, you definitely can, as proved by the members of the following list. This is a topic we explored a few years ago here on IFC.com, but that list is already hopelessly out-of-date. With today’s release of “Underworld: Awakening” — featuring the…
The term “chick flick” calls certain images to mind: moonlit kisses in the rain; awkward yet adorable first meetings between lovers; Katherine Heigl. If you’re calling something a “chick flick,” odds are you’re doing it dismissively, as in “My wife is dragging me to that new chick flick.” (NOTE: No one tell my wife I…
January doesn’t have the best reputation among cinephiles, possibly because January is, hands down, 99 and 44/100% pure crap when it comes to movies. Studios are still focused on their award contenders from November and December, audiences are getting back to their lives after a long vacation, and most of the movies released between January…
In a year that gave us big screen blockbusters like “Captain America,” “Thor,” “Green Lantern” and “Transformers,” sometimes it’s nice to take a step back and appreciate the medium where these stories got their start. With the book officially closed on 2011, I and my fellow contributor, Matt Singer, thought we’d offer up what were…
The end of the year is a cruel time for movies. Everything gets broken down into winners and losers: this film got a nomination, this one didn’t; this film is the best, this one isn’t. But movies aren’t nearly so black and white. A film can win over the hearts of every person who sees…
Acrophobics beware! Stay far, far away from Brad Bird‘s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” especially the scene where Tom Cruise dangles precariously off the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The Burj is over 2700 feet and 160 stories high, and Cruise actually hung from its windowed exterior. In the…
Continuing our list from yesterday here are five more of the best genre movies of 2011. Click over for our picks for the best romance, Western, horror film, legal thriller, and comic book movie. Today it’s time for the best spy movie, cop movie, sports movie, mystery, and science-fiction. Let’s do it. The Best Spy…
You’ve already got my list of the top ten films of 2011, but there were a lot more than just ten good movies this year. It’s time to highlight the genre standouts, the silly, scary, exciting, emotional stuff that doesn’t get the critical praise it deserves, especially at this time of the year when it’s…
Christmas movies are usually about the celebration of a time of year when everyone comes together to share gifts, affection and good will towards all. The plots range from grounded stories about families trying to survive the holidays, to adventures about mythical beings like Santa Claus and his elves working to ensure that every child…
Grab your matches and slap on your yamaka, because as of last night Hanukkah is officially in full swing. In our opinion, there’s nothing better to do after you light the menorah, eat your share of latkes and open countless presents than to sit down in front of the TV and watching a great movie…
The Mayans might have predicted the world would come to an end in 2012, but it’s hard to imagine a more apocalyptic year at the movies, both on and off-screen, than 2011. This was the year that theater attendance dipped to its lowest level since 1995 and critics played the role of coroners, declaring the…
As we sat down to write the introduction to our list of notable film spin-offs, someone forwarded along a link to the big movie news story of the day: Tom Cruise announcing his plan to reprise his role as ultra-profane movie producer Les Grossman from the 2008 film “Tropic Thunder” in an as-yet-untitled comedy. Tom…
Technically, Ondine — the title character of Neil Jordan’s new film — isn’t a mermaid. When she winds up in fisherman Colin Farrell’s net in the middle of the ocean, his daughter (Alison Barry) becomes convinced that she might be a selkie, a mythological seal-human hybrid of European folklore that the father and daughter take…
The New Jersey Nets finished the 2009-2010 NBA season with a record of 12 wins and 70 losses, good enough — well, bad enough — to rank them amongst the worst teams in league history. The New Jersey Nets of the new film “Just Wright,” on the other hand, are playoff contenders, thanks to the…
“I believe in the church of the baseball,” Susan Sarandon’s Annie Savoy said in “Bull Durham.” I do too. Especially right now in early April, when the weather is perfect, and every team has a chance, at least hypothetically, to go all the way. In a few months, half the teams playing and half the…
In the new film “Breaking Upwards,” struggling twentysomething couple Daryl and Zoe decide to address their relationship problems by planning and then executing their own breakup. Daryl is played by director/producer/editor/co-writer Daryl Wein, Zoe is played by producer/co-writer Zoe Lister-Jones, and the breakup in the film is based on the one the two went through…
After directly jumping from high school to the NBA, LeBron James never got to experience the college basketball ritual of March Madness, but if it were a condition rather than an event, I’d say his decision to star in the Universal comedy “Fantasy Basketball Camp” might just count for some sort of insanity. James is…
It looks like we’re entering a whole new world of documentaries about the Walt Disney Company. There have been two feature-length documentaries about Disney released in theaters during the last seven months alone. Last fall’s “Walt & El Grupo” examined Walt Disney’s goodwill tour of South America in the 1940s. This week’s “Waking Sleeping Beauty”…
When “Kick-Ass” premieres this evening as the opening night feature of this year’s SXSW Film Festival, it’ll be under the scrutiny of comic book fans who’ve been lusting after the film since director Matthew Vaughn showed clips at Comic-Con. But paying almost as much attention will be moviegoers who might take issue with the character…
Parties get a lousy rap in movies. Really, how often do you get to see characters having unfettered fun? More often, they’re moping and feeling alienated (see “Garden State”) or wasted out of their minds (see “Kids”) or feeling let down (see “Swingers”) or unearthing dark, long-kept family or friendship secrets (see “The Celebration”). Parties…
In his 1966 essay entitled “The Subverters,” Manny Farber hoped “for a new award at the year’s end: Most Subversive Actor.” His complete film criticism, “Farber On Film,” was published this year, and in his honor I’m submitting a list of five nominees for this wished-for fake trophy. But his definition of “subversive” is a…
Just as the Tiger Woods scandal snuck up on sports writers in this tail end of ’09, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis’ f-bomb filled interview on the state of women in Hollywood has become the gift that has just kept giving this holiday season for those who still enjoy a good old fashioned critical…
