Jane Eyre (2011) NYT Critics' Pick

Mia Wasikowska in “Jane Eyre.” More Photos »
Radiant Spirit Blossoms in Barren Land
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: March 10, 2011

Jane Eyre may lack fortune and good looks — she is famously “small and plain” as well as “poor and obscure” — but as the heroine of a novel, she has everything. From the very first pages of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 book, Jane embodies virtues that might be off-putting if they were not so persuasive, and if her story were not such a marvelous welter of grim suffering and smoldering passion. She is brave, humble, spirited and honest, the kind of person readers fall in love with and believe themselves to be in their innermost hearts, where literary sympathy lies. More

Certified Copy (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

William Shimell and Juliette Binoche debate art and life in Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy,” set in Tuscany.
On the Road, Packing Querulous Erudition
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: March 10, 2011

The Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s delicious brain tickler, “Certified Copy,” is an endless hall of mirrors whose reflections multiply as its story of a middle-aged couple driving through Tuscany carries them into a metaphysical labyrinth. More

Foreign Parts (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

A scene from “Foreign Parts,” a film about the Willets Point area of Queens, where cars, and their components, are kings.
A Patch of Rusty Paradise That Might Be Paved
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: March 9, 2011

It’s a safe bet that the Willets Point section of Queens, setting and subject of the new documentary “Foreign Parts,” does not figure in many New York tourist itineraries, though it has starred in a movie before, Ramin Bahrani’s “Chop Shop.” This battered stretch of junkyards and auto repair shops may thrive (or fester, depending on your point of view) in the shadow of Citi Field, but it seems a universe away from that gleaming corporate food court where the Mets occasionally win a baseball game. More

3 Backyards (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

In “3 Backyards” Edie Falco, left, plays a woman insatiably curious about her depressed celebrity neighbor (Embeth Davidtz).
What’s Really Beneath Those Manicured Lawns (and Suburban Smiles)
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: March 10, 2011

In Eric Mendelsohn’s “3 Backyards,” the sunlight spearing through thick green foliage on a summer afternoon in a Long Island hamlet evokes a magical fairy-tale jungle. Here secrets are buried, and wild creatures roam. The air seethes with the sounds of insects, birds and the neighborhood. On the ground, tiny creatures wiggle and squirm; the earth is alive. More

Black Death (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

Eddie Redmayne in “Black Death”, directed by Christopher Smith.
‘Black Death’ and Dark Ages Drama
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: March 10, 2011

Scene: The year 1348, somewhere in Europe. Enter the bubonic plague, represented by lolling corpses and scurrying rats. Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), a conflicted young monk, has been recruited by a fanatically devout knight (Sean Bean) and his small band of church-hired mercenaries to lead them to a remote, pestilence-free village. Disturbed by rumors that the villagers are using sorcery to ward off the sickness, the bishop would like his heavily-armed goons to ask them very nicely to stop. More

BLACK DEATH: Opens on Friday in West Hollywood, Calif.; Minneapolis; and New York.

Brotherhood (2010) NYT Critics' Pick

Trevor Morgan in “Brotherhood.”
‘Brotherhood’: Pledge Night Gone Wrong
By NEIL GENZLINGER
Published: March 10, 2011

Any college presidents who didn’t ban fraternities after “Animal House” came out in 1978 might consider doing so if they happen to see “Brotherhood,” a fast-moving thriller about a pledge night at a fictional frat house that goes horribly wrong. More

Making the Boys (2009) NYT Critics' PickA scene from “The Boys in the Band.”

A Recent History and a Personal Story
By NEIL GENZLINGER
Published: March 10, 2011

Sometimes you don’t have to go very far into the past to be amazed at how drastically things have changed. That is driven home by “Making the Boys,” Crayton Robey’s captivating documentary about the creation of, and reaction to, the breakthrough play “The Boys in the Band.” More

For the SF Challenged

Mars Needs Moms (2011)

It seems that it’s time to admit that dressing actors in LED-studded catsuits, asking them to give performances on sterile white sets and handing the results to a team of computer animators is not a way to make a good movie. It didn’t work for “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf” or “A Christmas Carol,” and it doesn’t work for “Mars Needs Moms,” the latest product of Robert Zemeckis’s obsession with motion-capture animation.

City of Angels Resists Becoming City of Aliens (the Outer-Space Type)

Considered as an alien-invasion science-fiction allegory, it’s about as deep as the dimple on Mr. Eckhart’s chin, and as lean and square as his jaw. Which is fine.

Google's Tsunami Alert for today

Ebert on Battle: Los Angeles

Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you've been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart. Link

Tips For The Workers of Wisconsin

Tips For The Workers of Wisconsin

Just remember

That if you're on the sea shore and the tide goes waay, waay, waay, waay out, it's not because Ghod loves you and wants you to pick up starfish from the bottom of the sea. It's because a goddamned tsunami is coming and you should run like hell hie for the highlands.

Watch on YouTube

Green Cuisine in Legoland

By ROGER COHEN
Published: March 10, 2011

COPENHAGEN — Every now and again nations rebrand themselves. The process can be painstaking, as in Germany, or can occur with the sudden lurch that has turned Denmark, which never made anything more mouthwatering than a Lego set, into a culinary destination. More

"Governor Walker wants your lunch money."

truepenny on government by bullying

Read and also Shamelessly Stolen from supergee

MinnPost - Braublog: In Alexandria teen suicide, the orientation that dare not speak its name

MinnPost - Braublog: In Alexandria teen suicide, the orientation that dare not speak its name