Control - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 78
I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but, before discovering Control, I had no idea who Ian Curtis was and wouldn’t have been able to identify a Joy Division album if you played the whole thing for me. What makes this even worse is the fact that even a brief skimming of their [...]

Starting Out in the Evening - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 78
I’m a sucker for shout outs to my hometown(s) in film, music, TV, etc., so Starting Out in the Evening had a little bit of a leg up in my book as soon as one of the characters made an off-hand reference to growing up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Starting Out centers on aging [...]

Lars and the Real Girl - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 70
Sorry if this review ends up being short, but I’ve been distracted recently so it has been a while since I’ve watched this.
Anyhow, Lars and the Real Girl, is the story of a young man who has become so emotionally disconnected from the world around him that his, perhaps subconscious, need for a [...]

Hannah Takes the Stairs - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 63
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Hey IFC First Take, I really like the majority of your movies, but will you please give me the last 83 minutes of my life back? My time could have been better spent alphabetizing my refrigerator or counting my leg hairs.
OK, now that I’ve vented my frustration a bit I can get [...]

Charlie Wilson’s War - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 69
OK, last Philip Seymour Hoffman movie for a while. He’s a great actor and all, but he’s such a dominating presence in everything that he’s in that I feel like we need some time apart.
Charlie Wilson’s War is the story of how Congressman Charlie Wilson, a wealthy Texas woman, and a mid-level CIA [...]

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 92
Wow. What a movie. I will get this out of the way right up front, I think The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was the best picture to come out last year. It took me a couple days to decide, but I would rank it slightly above the Oscar winner, No Country [...]

The Savages - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 85

I need to watch something cheery one of these days. A large part of me loves these compelling, dark family dramas, but enough of them without something positive to break them up tends to wear you down.
That being said, I still really liked The Savages quite a bit. Philip Seymour Hoffman is really [...]

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 84
I’m sort of on a Philip Seymour Hoffman kick recently. He’s always been one of my favorite actors, but without planning it at all he’s popped up in 3 of the last four movies I’ve rented (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, The Savages, Scent of a Woman) and the next one I’m [...]

Juno - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 81
I was really disappointed I missed Juno in theaters. It got all kinds of great reviews and everyone raved about the witty dialogue. I liked Superbad and was interested to see another performance by Michael Cera. Needless to say, I went into Juno with some pretty high expectations. I left feeling satisfied, but [...]

The Kite Runner - Movie Review

MetaCritic Score: 61
Before I had even seen the movie or read any reviews, I already knew The Kite Runner’s score on MetaCritic was going to be way lower than it should be. How did I know it? The answer lies in my assumption that most professional movie critics are probably also book snobs. Most people [...]