The film mines a rich vein of emotive pain without sacrificing an inch of its spooky sense of fun.
The series works best when it focuses on intimate, human moments rather than on broad social critiques.
If the movie has the ring of a high school or college reunion, that’s because that’s pretty much what it’s like.
It’s difficult to believe Ryder’s gullibility, if not willingness to be caught in his uncle’s strange web of provocations.
The film conveys an engagingly low-key atmosphere, pervasive with wayward souls haunted by poor choices.
It’s best appreciated as a tragicomic profile of a man whose extraordinary talent was undermined by the political reality in which he was enmeshed.
The near-imperceptible finesse of Abby’s characterization reflects writer-director Stacie Passon’s effortless, interesting mix of richness and economy.
Stacie Passon approaches Concussion’s subject matter provocatively though never exploitatively.
The Sessions is a deeply humane dramedy about sex and good spirits.
Renée Zellweger makes a concerted effort portraying Ann as charming and sympathetic even as the narrative fails to justify either quality.
The artistic psyche has never been more joylessly explored than in Synecdoche, New York.
Another episode of Lost, another con artist in our midst.
Even the flashback this week was informative.
There also isn’t a moment when The Good German’s artifice isn’t as depressingly hollow as a spent bullet casing.
The show depicts human beings as they are—scatterbrained, selfish, myopic, sometimes viciously cruel.
Deadwood has never shied away from theatrical flourishes that make metaphors concrete.
The episode feels like a summation of the show’s thoughts on what it means to be mortal.
The story of the Ellsworth/Alma/Bullock love triangle is being told almost entirely in subtle looks and body language.
In Deadwood, no one incident is isolated; it inevitably touches everyone and everything, reverberating throughout a community now readying itself for its first legal elections.
Robin Weigert has the unenviable task of now playing the most famous character on Deadwood.