Daybreakers (2010)

A scene featuring Ethan Hawke, center, as Edward Dalton in “Daybreakers.”
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: January 8, 2010

Among the many pleasures of “Daybreakers” is its reminder that vampire movies can function as more than just metaphors for teenage celibacy. Written and directed by Peter and Michael Spierig (the Australian twins who brought us the ebullient 2003 zombie caper “Undead”), this impressively styled thriller envisions a world where vampires rule, and humans run. Those who don’t are likely to find themselves transformed into Ready Meals and stored in a giant corporate larder: a futuristic Costco with only one product. More

Waiting For Armageddon (2008)

A baptism in the documentary ”Waiting for Armageddon.”
Apocalyptic Beliefs of American Evangelicals
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: January 8, 2010

Who knew that one of this year’s first horror movies would arrive not from Japan or the mind of Eli Roth but from three inquisitive nonfiction filmmakers? Turning their camera on the apocalyptic beliefs of American evangelicals (estimated in the film at more than 50 million), Kate Davis, Franco Sacchi and David Heilbroner illuminate a worldview marked by absolute certainty and chilling finality. More

Sweetgrass (2009) NYT Critic's Pick

Pat Connolly is one of the cowboys seen at work in “Sweetgrass.”
Montana Cowboys Lead, Coax and Cajole Their Charges Amid a Chorus of Bleats
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: January 6, 2010

The tagline for the wonderful documentary “Sweetgrass,” the first essential movie of this young year, is “the last ride of the American cowboy.” I suppose the word shepherd, with its pastoral evocations of maidens in pantaloons and lads with flutes, doesn’t have the necessary grit or mythic punch. But the quiet and cantankerous men in this movie, mostly in cowboy hats — one of which is charmingly ornamented with a sheep pin on the crown — are keeping and sometimes losing sheep as surely as Little Bo Peep did. More

A Year Ago in Winter (2008)

Karoline Herfurth with Josef Bierbichler in “A Year Ago in Winter,” by Caroline Link.
Death of a Golden Boy Ripples Through a Family
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: January 6, 2010

Late in Caroline Link’s film “A Year Ago in Winter,” the bottled-up anguish of the Richters, a well-to-do family in Munich whose 19-year-old son and golden boy, Alexander (Cyril Sjostrom), shot himself to death, is conjured by a turbulent Peter Gabriel song, “Signal to Noise,” heard on the soundtrack. More

Bubbles and the Banks

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 7, 2010

Health care reform is almost (knock on wood) a done deal. Next up: fixing the financial system. I’ll be writing a lot about financial reform in the weeks ahead. Let me begin by asking a basic question: What should reformers try to accomplish? ...

Let me conclude with a political note. The main reason for reform is to serve the nation. If we don’t get major financial reform now, we’re laying the foundations for the next crisis. But there are also political reasons to act.

For there’s a populist rage building in this country, and President Obama’s kid-gloves treatment of the bankers has put Democrats on the wrong side of this rage. If Congressional Democrats don’t take a tough line with the banks in the months ahead, they will pay a big price in November. More

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Lead for the Eyes?

Cleopatra's eye make-up 'had health benefits'

The heavy eye make-up favoured by ancient Egyptians such as Cleopatra may have had medical as well as aesthetic benefits, French research suggests. More

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