Stephanie Zacharek

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REVIEW: Elizabeth Olsen Beguiles in Martha Marcy May Marlene

The opening scene of Sean Durkin's debut feature Martha Marcy May Marlene suggests we're in for a big rusty bread pan's worth of rural miserablism, and even though we're…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Moretz Aside, Texas Killing Fields Not So Killer

Every time Sam Worthington shows up in a movie, I squint and ask myself, "Who's that again?" That might happen two or three times with a new actor. But I feel as if I've…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Not Just Your Average Remake, Footloose Has All the Right Moves

God save Craig Brewer's Footloose, which is less a movie for today's audiences than for yesterday's -- and I mean that in the good way. This is a pop entertainment made…

6 years ago

REVIEW: The Thing Spells Out Every Little Thing Yet Tells Us Nothing

As we all know by now, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing is not a remake of John Carpenter's 1982 The Thing, which in turn wasn't really a remake of Howard Hawks…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Gritty Miss Bala Shows Some Leg, and Also Shows Restraint

Miss Bala is a fairly straightforward story, told in a reasonably straightforward way: A young woman in Mexico longs to win a beauty pageant as a way of making life…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Gosling and Clooney Bring Movie-Star Chops, and Movie-Star Stubble, to The Ides of March

George Clooney's The Ides of March is an actors' movie, a picture that gives performers some provocative things to do without necessarily providing a great story for…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Real Steel Is Movie Comfort Food, with Robot Boxers

In Real Steel Hugh Jackman plays a boxing promoter who's forced to reconnect with his estranged son. But the boxers on which Jackman hangs his hopes aren't human: Real…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Tepid But Harmless Dirty Girl Makes Special Plea for '80s Teen Misfits

Every era has its misfits, people who feel out of step with their contemporaries and the world. As a plea for tolerance and understanding of oddballs, Dirty Girl, the…

6 years ago

REVIEW: There's a Great Movie in Dream House, Dying to Get Out

In olden times -- as far back as 1993, even -- I'd sometimes see screenwriters quoted in defense of their craft, asserting that the script is always the backbone of a…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Anna Faris Draws the Short Straw in What's Your Number?

There are hundreds of reasons we should welcome the new trend of movies featuring women who aren't afraid to admit they enjoy sex and who use language that isn't always…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Gives 50/50 a Fighting Chance

The world needs more cancer comedies. But it may not need more cancer comedies like 50/50. It's not that 50/50 is insensitive or dull or unfunny -- it sidesteps all…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Take Shelter Raises the Question, How Much Michael Shannon Is Too Much?

Casting Michael Shannon as a potential psychotic is a bit like crowing over the discovery that water is wet. And sure enough, in Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter, Shannon…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Inspirational Dolphin Tale Doesn't Go All Soppy

You couldn't come up with a simpler, more nakedly inspirational story than the one told in Dolphin Tale: Unhappy, disengaged child of single mom finds a wounded dolphin…

6 years ago

REVIEW: Brad Pitt Puts a Golden Spin on Moneyball

Young actors are wonderful creatures, breezing -- or busting -- on to the landscape as if from nowhere, indulging us in the delight of discovery. But the twin pleasure…

6 years ago

REVIEW: De Niro, Statham and Clive Owen in a Pizza-Guy Mustache: So This is the Killer Elite?

What do you call an action movie manned by people who look as if they don't want to be there? An inertia movie? Action movies aren't just about action -- they're also…

6 years ago

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