Hooray! The banking crisis is over! Let’s party! O.K., maybe not.
In the end, the actual release of the much-hyped bank stress tests on Thursday came as an anticlimax. Everyone knew more or less what the results would say: some big players need to raise more capital, but over all, the kids, I mean the banks, are all right. Even before the results were announced, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, told us they would be “reassuring.” More
Beto and Tato Verdusco are half brothers who work together at a banana plantation and live with their extended family in a village in southern Mexico. When the two of them are suddenly (and somewhat improbably) plucked from rural proletarian obscurity and turned into professional soccer players in Mexico City, they achieve fame as Rudo and Cursi, nicknames that can be translated more or less as tough and corny. More
In “Adoration,” a profound and provocative exploration of cultural inheritance, communications technology and the roots and morality of terrorism, the Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan nimbly wades into an ideological minefield without detonating an explosion. More
There are few film actresses working today who can embrace the extremes of beauty and ugliness as persuasively as Tilda Swinton, and fewer still, I suspect, who have the guts to try. She’s a magnificent, bold, sometimes viscerally uncomfortable screen presence, with an otherworldly alabaster glow and a piercing gaze that seems to nail you to your seat. (She’s one of the few performers who justifies that overworked critical superlative, riveting.) When she’s on screen, you don’t want to look anywhere, even if the story is so bleak, so utterly and overwhelmingly pitiless that you want to look anywhere but at the screen, at anyone but her. More
An old man with a failing heart determinedly drags himself from his sickbed and sneaks out of the house while his caretakers’ backs are turned. Wearing pajamas and a Panama hat, supporting himself on a cane and carrying his IV drip, he totters into the yard, unlocks the gate and wades unsteadily into a field that stretches to the horizon. Horses are visible in the distance, and a stiff breeze is blowing. Deep into the field, he pauses to urinate; then he suddenly loses strength and sinks into the grass in a stupor. More
The tangled three-way friendship of Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca — important artistic figures of the 20th century whose paths crossed in Madrid early in their careers — could make for a fascinating movie. Instead, we have “Little Ashes,” directed by Paul Morrison and written by Philippa Goslett, a painfully sincere study in creative passion, sexual ardor and political zeal that embalms a mad and exuberant historical moment within the talky, balky conventions of period-costumed highbrow soap opera.
The film starts off like a Spanish variation on “Brideshead Revisited,” with various handsome young men in beautifully tailored shirts bursting into university dormitory rooms, lighting cigarettes and declaiming knowingly on art, religion, modern society and the talents and deficiencies of their peers. A couple of brightly plumed, semi-emancipated women occasionally take part in the conversations, which the international cast utters in Castilian-accented — or should I say acthented — English. More
With horror-movie music and stark white-on-gray titles, “Outrage” promises to illuminate a “brilliant conspiracy” that protects the secret lives of some powerful politicians while ensuring that the rights and interests of ordinary gay and lesbian Americans remain marginal. The choice of the word conspiracy may be deliberately provocative, but this indignant and methodical new documentary, directed by Kirby Dick, offers a lot of insight into the ideology and psychology of present-day political homophobia. More
A bright, shiny blast from a newly imagined past, “Star Trek,” the latest spinoff from the influential television show, isn’t just a pleasurable rethink of your geek uncle’s favorite science-fiction series. It’s also a testament to television’s power as mythmaker, as a source for some of the fundamental stories we tell about ourselves, who we are and where we came from. The famous captain (William Shatner, bless his loony lights) and creator (Gene Roddenberry, rest in peace) may no longer be on board, but the spirit of adventure and embrace of rationality that define the show are in full swing, as are the chicks in minis and kicky boots. More
Believe it or not, often I can see the other side of an argument. I know that tough gun control laws save lives and make our communities safer, for example, but I also see clarity in the Second Amendment. I support affirmative action, but I realize that providing opportunity to some worthy individuals can mean denying opportunity to others. Thinking about some issues involves discerning among subtly graded shades of gray. More
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