Email Author Karina Longworth

Awards

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  Film reviews

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club, published February 5, 2010

  "Sundance's Rebel Yell"

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2011 Stories by Karina Longworth

• Karina Longworth on Why You May Not Have Seen Her Favorite Film of 2011

  published December 29, 2011

  Margaret, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me), starring Anna Paquin with key supporting performances... More >>

• Nine Films to Anticipate in 2012

  published December 29, 2011

  We know — you're excited about The Dark Knight Rises. And The Avengers. And The Hunger Games. So are we. We're also... More >>

• Hugo: Martin Scorsese Milks the 3-D Trend for His Timeless Cause

  published November 24, 2011

  Martin Scorsese's first foray into big-budget family filmmaking — as well as his inaugural effort in 3-D — Hugo is a... More >>

• My Week With Marilyn Takes the Sex Out of Sex Symbol

  published November 24, 2011

  We get the escapism we deserve, I guess: Just as 1930s Hollywood distracted Depression-era audiences with glitzy Fred and Ginger musicals,... More >>

• The Skin I Live In: Pedro Almodovar Directs a Mad-Scientist Tale Without the Moral Compass

  published November 3, 2011

  The morality of the mad-scientist tale has remained more or less fixed since the beginning of sound cinema: From Dr. Frankenstein's hubristic... More >>

• Footloose: Remake Has All the Right Moves to Bridge Generations and Capture Two Demos

  published October 13, 2011

  In hindsight, the 1984 hit Footloose — starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Herbert Ross — along with its contemporary... More >>

• The Ides of March: Intrigue Drowns Out Argument in This Political Thriller

  published October 6, 2011

  A procedural on the political manipulation of medium and message, George Clooney's fourth directorial effort is bookended with scenes of... More >>

• Albert Brooks Takes His Dark Side Out for a Spin in Drive

  published September 15, 2011

  When Albert Brooks greets me in the reception area of his Beverly Hills office, I immediately recognize his shirt. The baggy, faded, red... More >>

• Contagion: Steven Soderbergh Turns the Star-Studded Hollywood Disaster Flick on Its Head

  published September 8, 2011

  Currently the fifth-to-last film on Steven Soderbergh's ever-expanding pre-retirement slate, Contagion opens on day two of a global... More >>

• Our Idiot Brother: Paul Rudd Has a Predictable Profound Effect on His Siblings

  published August 25, 2011

  In Jesse Peretz's Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, a kind of Upstate New York version of "The Dude" Lebowski — a man out of... More >>

• One Day: Life Happens According to a Plan

  published August 18, 2011

  Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by David Nicholls, based on his novel, One Day stars Anne Hathaway as Emma,... More >>

• The Help: Civil Rights Through a Soft-Focus Lens

  published August 11, 2011

  More than just the Hollywood It Girl of the moment, Emma Stone is a real actress, and in The Help, she gets an ostentatious,... More >>

• The Change-Up: Guys Urinate, Swap Bodies, and Discover Their True Selves

  published August 4, 2011

  A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard issue anal-retentive... More >>

• Another Earth: Can a Radiant Brit Marling Glow Bright Enough to Carry Her Movie

  published August 4, 2011

  There may be nothing as Old Hollywood as the narrative about a pretty girl summoning up a dose of pluck to triumph over adversity. And yet Brit... More >>

• Crazy, Stupid, Love: The Directors of I Love You, Phillip Morris Fall Short of Their Own High Bar

  published July 28, 2011

  Phillip Morris directors fall short of their own high bar with Crazy, Stupid, Love. In the first scene of Crazy, Stupid, Love,... More >>

• Captain America Ignores Its Roots for Easy Money

  published July 21, 2011

  Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in 1941, Captain America was among the first American comic books intended as an... More >>

• Horrible Bosses: It's Hard Out There For an Employed, Middle Class, White-Collar Male

  published July 7, 2011

  There's a scene in Horrible Bosses in which Jennifer Aniston, playing a dentist who habitually sexually harasses her weakling male... More >>

• Bad Teacher and the Downside of Equal Rights In Hollywood

  published June 23, 2011

  From Tad Friend's New Yorker profile of Anna Faris (which Jezebel.com reblogged under the headline... More >>

• Mike Mills Explores His Own Family History in Beginners

  published June 23, 2011

  "Okay, so my parents were married in 1955, and my mom knew my dad was gay, and my dad knew he was gay, and so I was, like, 'Why in the heck did... More >>

• Green Lantern Gives Us a Case of Superhero Fatigue

  published June 16, 2011

  It's 10 minutes before a human character appears on-screen in Green Lantern, a personality-free franchise-launcher that builds toward a... More >>

• Midnight in Paris: Investigating the Problem of Time

  published May 26, 2011

  A nebbishy screenwriter who longs to publish a novel, Gil (Owen Wilson) is tentatively working on a book set in a nostalgia shop — much... More >>

• Meek's Cutoff Displays Fractured Trust in 19th-Century Oregon

  published May 26, 2011

  Tenacious indie Kelly Reichardt has specialized in quirky, minimalist quasi-road movies in which loners come unmoored in some great American... More >>

• Bridesmaids, a Comedy Written By and Starring Women, Is Still Screwed

  published May 12, 2011

  Bridesmaids is a high-profile test case. Directed by Paul Feig (a sitcom journeyman most lovingly known as the creator of Freaks and... More >>

• Jane Eyre: A New Adaptation of the Classic Stresses the Pursuit of Independence

  published March 10, 2011

  If Jane Eyre is not the greatest of the Great Books with a permanent position on required-reading lists, it may be the most frequently... More >>

• The Adjustment Bureau: A Too-Talky Conspiracy Movie That Still Has Its Pleasures

  published March 3, 2011

  In Bourne Ultimatum screenwriter George Nolfi's directorial debut (an extremely loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1954 short story... More >>