Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in 25 words or less:An adaptation of Holmes into the buddy-action-flick genre. Not landmark cinema, but it had clever touches, and by the end I liked it. B ( Read more... )

The Social Network in 25 words or less:

Skillfully built, Rashomon-style, from its protagonists’ deposition testimony. How good was it? I emerged with opinions about the characters, rather than the film. A.

True Grit in 25 words or less:The highly-stylized dialog poisoned everything in this film, rendering its characters clichéd and wooden, and ( Read more... )

Pan's Labyrinth in 25 words or less:

This film works because it is beautifully sutble, yet unrestrained in its brutality. So many little choices made it a visceral, and perfectly ambiguous, experience. A.

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 in 25 words or less:I didn't miss the coherence in this (essentially) set of archetypal atmospheric genre shorts, but I did ( Read more... )