The dearth of substantial extras leaves the film, perhaps appropriately, to mostly speak for itself.
The filmmaker has the regal countenance of a Viennese baron—or maybe a Bond villain.
It reveals itself as vacuous and cold, a bizarrely seductive pseudo-thriller lacking a thoroughly worked-out payoff.
Perhaps the defining performance of Isabelle Huppert’s career is now on vibrant display in this Criterion Blu-ray.
Happy End is an empathetic portrait of personal grief as it’s experienced in a desensitized first-world society.
It will stress you out, but it won’t leave you in a fetal position. Compared to most of his filmography, this is “happy Haneke.”
Lars von Trier’s pretenses of self-interrogation and cross-examination avail themselves as especially useful when considering his work.
Poor Naomi Watts just can’t escape the big blue.
This Blu-ray gives Darius Khondji’s genius with all types of light a bit of a short shrift, but it’s not a severe enough knock to give this disc a pass.
Green has crafted a debut as fresh, intimate, and compassionate as Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher in 1999.
Let’s try to rid our minds of the deplorable notion that Spielberg and Lee are contending for an award that belongs to Affleck.
More than in any of the other categories it’s nominated in, the unreal fall from grace suffered by Zero Dark Thirty will be particularly palpable when it inevitably loses here.
Perhaps “Michael Haneke” himself best elucidates the success of Amour by describing the film it could have been but no one, except possibly for us, would have wanted to see or give an Oscar to.
The email paper trail this year’s live-action short category has left in its wake has litigation written all over it, but our expert panel [sic] managed to agree on at least a few things.
The surefire frontrunners are Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck, and Steven Spielberg.
The one certainty of this year’s Original Screenplay field is a bit of 2010 déjà vu.
As indicated by its title, the film is super-sensitive to class divisions.
There’s no empathy in Haneke’s carefully composed frames, ruthlessly prolonged takes, and generally detached stance.
Amour intends to dupe us, to feed on our own pain and suffering.
Will the Academy really go for a star-free, Sendak-esque allegory, whose rugged charms are tied to its loose lack of answers?