March 26, 2010

There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

There Will Be Blood methodically depicts the rise of its fictional character, from his modest entrepreneurial beginnings to rich oil mogul.
April 19, 2010

Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone, 2006)

Although its story recalls the hope and determination of the first Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976), Rocky Balboa is a pale copy.
March 26, 2010

The Savages (Tamara Jenkins, 2007)

In The Savages, Tamara Jenkins explores the importance of family and the effects of dementia in this hard depiction of growing old.
February 23, 2011

Domino (Tony Scott, 2005)

Domino is stylistically intricate, using several techniques developed by Scott through his commercials and his latest films that enhance the narrative.
March 22, 2010

City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)

A reviewer compared City of God to Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) and many parallels could be made between the two. As they both fall into the genre of gangster films, they depict violence in a raw, uninhibited way, in a realist fashion. City of God, with its documentary-style aesthetic—camera shakes, voice-over narration, etc., uses that realism to emphasize its story’s […]