Phoenix Movie Reviews - Phoenix Movies Guide

From Paris With Love: John Travolta Shows France Some Cowboy Diplomacy

As personal assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to France, James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) can keep himself in well-tailored suits and keep his... More>>

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: February 04, 2010

Edge of Darkness: Mel Gibson Gets Some Kind of Revenge With a Semi-Successful Vigilante Flick

"Did you shoot my daughtah?" is the question posed, in flat-voweled Bostonian, in the trailer for Edge of Darkness. And Mel Gibson, bereaved and... More>>

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: January 28, 2010

Extraordinary Measures: Harrison Ford Is Still Useful

Extraordinary Measures is a race-against-time thriller in which a desperate dad (Brendan Fraser) sacrifices everything to cure a rare disease... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: January 21, 2010

The Lovely Bones: Peter Jackson’s Use of 3-D CGI Renders This Film One-Dimensional

A one-film cabinet of curiosities, The Lovely Bones turns the most successful CGI director of the '00s loose on one of the decade's prime... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: January 14, 2010

The Book of Eli’s Post-Apocalyptic Theology Is a Little Warped

Directors Allen and Albert Hughes were raised by an Armenian mother and African-American father. With such a background, it would be difficult... More>>

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: January 14, 2010

Year in Film: Best Films of 2009

1. The Hurt Locker: The decade's strongest Iraq movie is also the year's finest action flick, not to mention director Kathryn Bigelow's personal... More>>

Published: January 07, 2010

Year in Film: Clint Eastwood Tackles Mandela, the Hereafter and Approaching 80

On a late March morning, the sun sits high in the Cape Town sky, illuminating the trapezoidal monolith of Table Mountain in the distance, while... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: January 07, 2010

Year in Flim: Best Films of the Decade

Looking back on a decade dominated by the movie franchise — Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Spider-Man, to name just a few... More>>

By J. Hoberman, Robert Wilonsky and Scott Foundas

Published: January 07, 2010

Youth In Revolt: The Cult Novel Must Continue It’s Search for a Worthy Film Adaptation

For years, Hollywood has wrestled with adapting C.D. Payne's 1993 novel Youth in Revolt — which, actually, was three novels collected under... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: January 07, 2010

In Leap Year, Amy Adams Is Trapped in the Land of Blarney, Cow Pies, and Forced Humiliation

Is this a commercial for the National Tourism Council of Ireland or for the conditioner Amy Adams uses in her hair? Either way, both look... More>>

By Brian Miller

Published: January 07, 2010

Crazy Heart: Jeff Bridges Shines as a Country Music Has-Been, but Will the Elusive Oscar Finally Be His?

Enticing Jeff Bridges to voice a washed-up surfer dude in the 2007 children's movie Surf's Up, the filmmakers sent the actor a video of an... More>>

By Ella Taylor

Published: December 31, 2009

It’s Complicated: Nancy Meyers Can’t Keep Making the Same Film Over and Over

Does Nancy Meyers hate women? The thought ran through my head not very long into It's Complicated, Meyers' biennial stocking-stuffer about the... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: December 24, 2009

Crazy Heart: Country Music, Faded Stardom, Liquor, and Age

Yesterday's honky-tonk hero, Bad Blake, arrives at a Clovis, New Mexico bowling alley. It's another in a string of low-pay, low-turnout gigs with... More>>

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: December 24, 2009

Tom Ford’s A Single Man: It’s Better to Look Good Than Be Good

Tom Ford's A Single Man: It's better to look good than be good. Too much is never enough for fashion designer turned filmmaker Tom Ford, whose... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: December 24, 2009

Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodóvar Still Believes in Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodóvar still believes in Pedro Almodóvar. "Everything's already happened to me," admits Harry Caine, the blind,... More>>

By Rob Nelson

Published: December 24, 2009

Avatar: Money Isn’t Everything, and All that Glitters Isn’t Gold

The money is on the screen in Avatar, James Cameron's mega-3D, mondo-CGI, more-than-a-quarter-billion-dollar baby, and, like the Hope Diamond... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: December 17, 2009

Up in the Air Avoids Predictable Routes and Lands the Emotion

There is something oddly familiar about Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, in which George Clooney plays a commitment-phobic business traveler with... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: December 10, 2009

Clint Eastwood’s Invictus Lacks Truth but Has Plenty of Reconciliation

Aside from Morgan Freeman, who makes a fabulous Nelson Mandela, there's this to savor about Invictus, a rosy tale of racial reconciliation neatly... More>>

By Ella Taylor

Published: December 10, 2009

Richard Linklater’s Orson Welles Puts on Quite a Show

The most significant American artist before Andy Warhol to take "the media" as his medium, Orson Welles lives on not only in posthumously... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: December 10, 2009

Crude Details the Toxic Battle Between Big Oil and Dying Natives in Ecuador

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Why? Because it's thick with sludge. Moving briskly through a stranger-than-fiction, serpentine... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: December 10, 2009

Everybody’s Fine: Father Does Not Know Best When Father Is De Niro

Don't be misled by the cheesy, generic poster for Kirk Jones' Everybody's Fine, in which a grinning Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, and Kate... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: December 03, 2009

The Maid: Tackling the Thorny Role of a Live-In Maid, Sebastian Silva’s Film Cleans Up

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but for the title character of the pitch-black Chilean comedy The Maid, it's closer to an infernal torment.... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: December 03, 2009