Letterboxd — Your life in film

If his statements about his retirement remain true, Side Effects is the last theatrically released film we're ever going to be seeing from Steven Soderbergh. While it will be a damn shame not to be treated to his incredible versatility and bottomless talent as a filmmaker any longer, he sure went out on one hell of a high point. Looking at the trailers and marketing for Side Effects would have you believe that the film was going to be about…

The private detective genre has become more and more rare to see on screen in the past few decades, and that's a real shame. In an age focused on the oversaturation of 3D, visual effects and the sacrifice of developed plot or characters in exchange for more attention on blowing stuff up, these kinds of gritty and focused crime stories would be a welcome relief. The genre really hit its boom in the noirs of the '30s and '40s, and…

How far does idealism go? Does it require personal sacrifice? Does it conquer any and all familial loyalties? Can personal relationships take precedence, or does everything ultimately play second fiddle to your own moral convictions? These questions and many more ruminate deep within the many assorted characters of Robert Redford's reflective new feature, The Company You Keep. Based on the novel by Neil Gordon, adapted to the screen by Lem Dobbs, the title proves to be the focal point for…

You've just created a film, widely considered to be your magnum opus, encompassing a scope as epic as depicting the literal creation of the universe and the afterlife. So, what do you do next? If you're Terrence Malick, you take things in a more intimate direction with a domestic psychodrama detailing the coming together and falling apart of an American man and French woman. Played by Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko, with support from Rachel McAdams as a former flame…

Usually when a film depicts events that transpired in real life, there's a great care to honoring those involved by adhering as closely to the facts as possible while still understandably exaggerating it a little bit for more dramatic flare. Gangster Squad, the new film from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, does away with all that pretense by instead delivering a "true story" that feels more like it was ripped out of a comic book than from the headlines. Adapted from…

Michael Mann gets a Brit kick in Eran Creevy's sophomore feature, the cops-and-robbers thriller Welcome to the Punch. Coming off the breakout success of his debut film Shifty (which netted him a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding British Debut, among other accolades), Creevy is given a much higher profile and two name lead actors to tell his energized tale. Three years after criminal Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) puts a bullet into the leg of detective Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy), he comes…

Why would a child lie? That's the question at the center of Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt, a powerful examination of a small, close-knit community that is thrown into disarray by a young girl's accusation that her teacher has molested her. Mads Mikkelsen stars as Lucas, the teacher in question, and he brings his trademark gift for searing vulnerability and genuine emotion to a role that is primed to bring the audience to levels of utter devastation. A divorced father, Lucas'…

"How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land."

This quote opens and closes writer/director Mathieu Kassovitz's sophomore feature La Haine, and thus it's no surprise that it holds strong thematic weight in his chronicling of a day in the life of three mixed-race youths living in a French ghetto. The Jewish Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Arab Said (Said Taghmaoui) and black Hubert (Hubert Kounde) find themselves coming of age during a particularly heated time of social unrest in France. Raised…

We all like to occasionally spend some time getting lost in our own head, imagining the world the way we'd like it to be. Well, young William Fisher likes it a bit more than most. The title character of John Schlesinger's sophomore feature Billy Liar, Fisher spends most of his day avoiding his mundane real life by creating an entire elaborate country in his mind called Ambrosia. Here there are parades thrown in his honor and he never has to…

Watching Hal Ashby's Being There, I debated in my mind whether the reason the film wasn't working for me was due to it feeling dated or if it was something that was just never going to appeal to me in the first place. Upon reflection, I came to the decision that it fell into the latter camp but not for the reasons I initially thought it did. At first I was thinking that maybe it just wasn't for me, but…

If Leatherheads had been made in the 1940s, chances are it would have starred Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn and been directed by Howard Hawks. Made in the 21st century however, what we get instead are George Clooney, John Krasinski and Renee Zellweger led under Clooney's own direction. That's not to say that Leatherheads is immediately inferior just by comparison to what it is calling back to, but more so that Clooney and his team are clearly striving…

A seamless blend of brooding American noir with the energy of the coming French New Wave, Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows is one of the best debut features I've ever seen. A simple premise in design, this adaptation of Noel Calef's novel centers on lovers Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) and Florence Carala (Jeanne Moreau) as they conspire to off Caral's husband, who happens to be Tavernier's boss. Coming out of the gate strong with a smooth rhythm that calls…