A macro-economic horror story in the guise of an exceptionally harrowing hostage thriller, Paul Greengrass’ “Captain Phillips” dramatizes a 2009 incident in which a small band of Somali pirates hijacked an American cargo ship, a siege that has since become emblematic of the recent rise in similar armed attacks. Anchored by a compellingly candid titular performance by Tom Hanks (his best on-screen work since “Catch Me if You Can”), Greengrass’ latest recreation of recent history’s most vividly violent events is…

Perhaps the most striking thing about Spike Jonze’s “Her”, a tender Vonnegut-esque fable about a man who falls in love with his phone’s sentient operating system, is how seldom the film feels like a high-concept exercise. It’s to the immense credit of Jonze’s script, a sensitive and genuinely curious look at programmed living and the follies of possessive love that unfolds like “When Harry Met Skynet”, that the film’s central relationship ultimately feels like a somewhat typical portrait of modern…

an apocalypse of cuteness, the Citizen Kane of Disney Dad movies. humane, complex & heartbreaking to the hilt. i'm genuinely disturbed by how much of my future self i saw in the film – it's an uncanny portrait of the dad I'm afraid of being. methinks some of my less enthusiastic colleagues fundamentally misconstrued the central questions of the film.

i don't think Kore-eda's narrative is preoccupied with questioning whether the rich / cold man is a better father than the poor…

Ostensibly a modern-to-the-minute adaptation of James Thurber’s indelible short story, Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is kind of like if Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” were remade as an 114-minute Super Bowl commercial. A visually playful enlightenment drama that’s so preoccupied with inspiring its audience that it never bothers articulating a coherent message to inspire them with, Stiller’s film so consistently undercooks its cheap Hallmark sentiments that none of these pseudo-rousing peans to the inherent wonder of being alive…