Deficit Hawks: Full o' Sound & Fury

Willie Sutton Wept
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 17, 2011

There are three things you need to know about the current budget debate. First, it’s essentially fraudulent. Second, most people posing as deficit hawks are faking it. Third, while President Obama hasn’t fully avoided the fraudulence, he’s less bad than his opponents — and he deserves much more credit for fiscal responsibility than he’s getting. More

Yet Once Again

David Brooks has his head so far up his ass, he thinks he can see light ahead... More

Even the Rain (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

Juan Carlos Aduviri and Gael Garcia Bernal in “Even the Rain.”
Discovering Columbus’s Exploitation
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: February 17, 2011

Icíar Bollaín’s bluntly political film “Even the Rain” makes pertinent, if heavy-handed, comparisons between European imperialism five centuries ago and modern globalization. In particular it portrays high-end filming on location in poor countries as an offshoot of colonial exploitation. More

Putty Hill (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

A scene from “Putty Hill.”
Drugs, Death and Downward Mobility in Baltimore
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: February 17, 2011

“Putty Hill,” Matt Porterfield’s moody, elliptical fusion of fiction and documentary, slips back and forth between the forms with a stealth that dissolves one into the other. More

We Are What We Are (2011) NYT Critics' Pick

The hunger: Francisco Barreiro in “We Are What We Are,” Jorge Michel Grau’s cannibal tale set in Mexico City.
‘We Are What We Are’: They Are What They Eat
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: February 17, 2011

“We Are What We Are,” Jorge Michel Grau’s macabre fable of urban survival, follows the disintegration of a pod of people eaters when its diseased patriarch expires in a shopping mall. More

I Am Number Four (2011)

Alex Pettyfer and Teresa Palmer in “I Am Number Four.”
Tales of Teenage Aliens
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: February 17, 2011

Strip away the uninspired mythology, and “I Am Number Four” is just your average high school movie with below-average drama. Fielding familiar classroom stereotypes — the bully, the science geek, the strutting alien female in the skintight cat suit — this turgid schedule filler is only marginally more fun than a week’s worth of detention. More