Michelle Orange

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REVIEW: First-Time Director Vera Farmiga Seeks — and Finds —Higher Ground

Did you feel it? A few minutes after the earthquake that ran up the east coast Tuesday, the courtyard of my Brooklyn building rang with voices: This one jumped off of…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Even 4 Dimensions Can't Redeem Spy Kids: All the Time in the World

The idea that Machete, Robert Rodriguez's grindhouse tribute, was inspired in part by his Spy Kids trilogy of the early aughts is an appealing one. Danny Trejo played a…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Allegory Alert! John Sayles' Amigo Riffs on American Imperialism

The first American voice that is heard in Amigo, John Sayles's ponderous cine-play set during the U.S. occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the 19th century…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Fright Night Has an Upscale Cast, But Doesn't Offer Enough Other Reasons to Exist

If you come in cold, as I did, to the remake of the 1985 vampire movie Fright Night, your hopes for what begins as an ordinary slasher (bloody prologue followed by…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Final Destination 5 Combines Wit and Morbid Excess, and Somehow It Works

In his 1998 article about the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 into the Florida Everglades, William Langwiesche explains the concept of the "normal accident." When 105 people…

7 years ago

REVIEW: The Change-Up Takes Oversexed Dude Comedy to Grim, Joyless New Depths

The Change-Up is a studio hybrid both so advanced and so primitive it defies parsing. Partly derived from the old Freaky Friday switcheroo comedy, partly bent on what…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Magic Trip Documents Ken Kesey's Psychedelic Bus Tour Across America

Ken Kesey felt that the novel was no match for what was happening around him in 1964. After rising to literary prominence with his debut, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Miranda July Looks Into The Future and Sees a Talking Cat (Among Other Things)

A not-uncommon prologue: Miranda July drives me crazy, in the best and worst ways. Whether I'm watching her films, reading her stories, or taking a crack at her various…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Flailing Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson Can't Rescue The Guard

For those weary of parsing which part of the post-Dirty Harry, post-Tarantino cops and robbers homage is demonstrating its fondness for the genre and which is just…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Dominic Cooper Makes a Wicked-Good Uday Hussein The Devil's Double

The gangster fairy tale is transplanted into a Baghdad palace -- or is it the other way around? -- in The Devil's Double, the story of the Iraqi man induced into service…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Great Title, Cool Idea, But Cowboys and Aliens Crash-Lands

The B-movie marquee title of Cowboys and Aliens suggests a picture that's more irreverent, imaginative, and fun than the turgid movie that stands behind it. Rather than…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Eloquent, Unusual Myth of the American Sleepover Captures the Enduring Wistfulness of Teenhood

What's daring about The Myth of the American Sleepover, a modest, untroubled elegy for the passages of middle-American youth, is as straightforward as it is uncommon…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Kristin Scott Thomas' Bold Presence Anchors Sarah's Key

The notion of a haunted house is almost quaint to those who live in big cities, where there is barely room -- literally and spiritually -- for their own lives, much less…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Winnie the Pooh Charms with Warmth, Whimsy For All Ages

Sweet as anything and just as slender, the new Winnie the Pooh movie features no adjustments, adjuncts, or fancy add-ons in its title. It's not called Winnie, Pooh…

7 years ago

REVIEW: Young Stars Carry Otherwise Flaccid Life, Above All

A small story is laid out in broad, biblical terms in Life, Above All, a ye-who-is-without-sin parable set in contemporary, AIDS-stricken South Africa. Director Oliver…

7 years ago

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