Joe Carnahan’s The Grey falls in line with an intimate, frequently grueling genre of films that serve as potent reminders of why humankind builds cities. Pitting eternally grizzled survivor Liam Neeson and a dwindling crew of compatriots against a vicious, unrelenting nature, the film gets off to a strong start before mooring itself in thinly [...]

Fans of David Cronenberg may be at first put off by the pristine stuffiness that envelops A Dangerous Method. While the historical basis for the film is depicted in John Kerr’s “A Most Dangerous Method,” the screenplay has been adapted by Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play “The Talking Cure,” and it shows. This [...]

Based on the play “God of Carnage,” by French playwright Yasmina Reza, Roman Polanski’s latest outing, Carnage, follows 2010′s The Ghost Writer, a film unceremoniously swept under the rug. Not to suffer the same fate, the retitled, Brooklyn-transplanted (an impressive facsimile utilizing special effects and careful production design, mimicking the real thing adeptly despite having [...]

The title of Lars von Trier’s latest film refers to a rogue planet, significantly dwarfing our Earth and heading for it on an inevitable collision course. von Trier sets the countdown to extinction among a wealthy family holed up in a storybook castle, inhabited largely by two sisters, one a force of depressive nature and [...]

The Driver (Ryan Gosling) has no need for a name. He embodies his job description — a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. Life outside of the 1973 Chevy Malibu, his vehicle of choice, is anonymous. That is, until Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall, walks into the Driver’s life. [...]

It’s all in a touch — love, rage, suffering and happiness are all defined by our proximity to one another. Even a soldier a thousand miles away staring at a screen that a drone projects back to him needs to press a key to make an insurgent disappear. Steven Soderbergh’s fitfully disturbing and fully realized [...]

John Sayles’ newest film, Amigo, inspired in part by the director’s work on a novel, “A Moment in the Sun,” focuses on a vital American incursion overseas that has been all but paved over in our history books — the Philippine-American War, occurring at the cusp of a new century, barely fifty years after the [...]

In the past few weeks, New York City and the United States experienced a grueling, sweltering heat wave that swept over the East Coast after parching the rest of the country. This writer spent most of it indoors, in close proximity to a rumbling air conditioner — when I did go out, it was to [...]