The Intouchables opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: The Intouchables is a series of fatuous scenes showing a Senegalese man named Driss livening up the world of his wealthy paraplegic employer Philippe, while of course learning a little something about himself in the process. It’s one of the most successful movies […]
Nathan Gelgud
Bio: N.C. State graduate Nathan Gelgud lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and writes about film. He also does film-inspired illustrations.Twitter: http://twitter.com/gelgud
A surprising killer in Bernie, Richard Linklater’s Texas black comedy
Bernie opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: Bernie is a small-town courtroom tale that would have Atticus Finch spinning in his grave. Luckily, the title character is an assistant funeral director with a magnanimous heart: He surely would be happy to touch up the corpse of the saintly Mississippi lawyer. Richard […]
Bloody capitalism: The missed opportunity of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows
Photo by Peter Mountain DARK SHADOWS* * starsOpens Friday Usually, a plot synopsis does not service either a decent movie review or the movie in question. But speaking of Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, it might just do the trick. Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is out to get his. He wakes up from a centuries-long slumber […]
Stultifying Britishness in The Deep Blue Sea
The Deep Blue Sea opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: Don’t pour the milk into the cup before the tea. Be respectful of those who deserve it; to everyone else, be civil. Don’t put the shoes on the table because it’s bad luck (silly me, I always thought you didn’t put […]
A metaphor that’s all too easy to follow in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen opens Friday at the Rialto (see times below) Our rating: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen might be the gentlest movie ever made involving a political scandal, an eccentric sheik, an M.I.A. soldier and a slow-burning romance between two people as attractive as Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. Think Wag the […]
Prolonged adolescence in Jeff, Who Lives at Home
Jeff, Who Lives at Home opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: Filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass come from microbudget, so-called mumblecore origins, but Jeff, Who Lives at Home is their second mainstream release (after Cyrus). Even though the Duplasses now have a modest budget and veritable movie stars in the mix, […]
Scouting this year’s short film Oscar nominees
2011 Oscar Shorts: Live action Animated Feb. 10–16 at the Carolina Theatre (see times below) Does your office Oscar pool count the short films as anything more than tiebreakers? If so, you might be able to gain an edge by visiting the Carolina Theatre, which will be screening all of the nominees in the short […]
David Cronenberg’s surprisingly non-delirious A Dangerous Method
A Dangerous Method opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: In David Cronenberg’s surprisingly non-delirious A Dangerous Method, two titans of psychotherapy fight over theories of repression, the meaning of dreams and a disturbed and beautiful patient who frolics in a puddle and, covered with mud, shouts that her interests are “suicide […]
Characters can’t leave the room in Polanski’s latest, Carnage
Carnage opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: Carnage is an adaptation of a successful play, but the movie is pure Roman Polanski, with a touch of Luis Buñuel. Four people seem trapped together in an apartment, unable to split apart despite rising hostilities. Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John […]
Charlize Theron plays a selfish writer in Young Adult
Young Adult opens Friday throughout the Triangle (see times below) Our rating: “You’re better than this,” Buddy tells Mavis when she’s especially out of line in Young Adult, a queasy comedy about nostalgia and stunted emotional growth. But in its painful 90 minutes, Young Adult slowly makes it clear that Mavis, played unsympathetically by Charlize […]

