I have no particular feelings one way or the other for the band Spandau Ballet, the subjects of the documentary Soul Boys of the Western World, which is why I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the film. Soul Boys is entertaining through its formal …Read more

In this age of conglomerated media, the figure of a newspaper baron, a person like Hearst who reshaped papers in his image, seems an antiquated notion, one that hasn’t existed since before WWII and the late rise of television news. But the documentar …Read more

West is a film about a border crossing, but the crossing itself happens early in the film and is relatively uneventful. Rather, West addresses the psychological malaise that accompanies the transition, the lingering uncertainties and confusions that …Read more

Genocide. Few would argue that its prevention is not a moral imperative, yet it is so sickening and unknowable, that many would rather ignore it than face it head on. Genocide and this inherent tension form the subject of a devastating new documentar …Read more

SIDEBAR: See our red-carpet interviews with cast of “Birdman” here! “And what did you want?” “To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on this earth.” Iñárritu quotes Raymond Carver at the beginning of his new film Birdman, and these words prov …Read more

Most documentaries on politics and science don’t open with scenes from a magic show, but Merchants of Doubt uses intermittent interviews with a magician as an ingenious framing device to show how a new breed of PR mercenary is using the same tricks h …Read more

Foxcatcher is only Bennett Miller’s third feature film, but he should already be considered in the highest tier of American directors. Despite working with vastly different source material, Foxcatcher shows some of the same traits that allowed Capote …Read more

Mr. Turner is a film by one English master about another – filmmaker Mike Leigh depicting the great Romantic painter JMW Turner, in Leigh’s opinion the greatest of all English painters, who brought a new intelligence to landscapes and nautical scenes …Read more

If you’ve only given a cursory glance to movie listings lately and are confused to see The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her released so soon after The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, it’s not a sequel, rather Him and Her are two more or …Read more

“It’s gentle and rousing, just what we like, between euphoria and melancholy;” Paul (Felix de Givry) gives this poetic description of his music in a radio interview halfway through Eden, but it can also describe Eden itself, Mia Hansen-Love’s film ab …Read more