Black Hawk Down (2001)

Hippie heaven in the California mountains as seen through the telescope of nearly 40 eventful years — but almost entirely without perspective

A husband and wife are driving home after an evening out. The wife asks the husband why it should be that they put braces on girls just at the moment when they are most self-conscious about their appearance. The husband, looking tired and fed-up, says he doesn’t know and lapses into silence. Suddenly there are…

A charming, unpretentious little movie from Mexico that gradually reveals to us hidden depths and a surprising emotional power

Michael Sragow, writing in salon.com, says that Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s lovely little film, Mifune, “outlines the emptiness of upward mobility in an age of unapologetic capitalism.” It is one of those observations that tell you far more about the critic than they do about the film, which is not at all about “capitalism,” unapologetic or otherwise,…

Though message-laden and inclined to a facile view of international politics, this is a fresh and funny look at the travails of family life

The Astronaut’s Wife, by Rand Ravich, is like the Alien movies in being a kind of mythologization of modern female insecurities about sex and childbearing. Commander Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp) is a mystery from the beginning. Apparently deeply attached to his wife, Jillian (Charlize Theron), to the point of uxoriousness, he is also very much…