Category: 2008

  • Definitely, Maybe (2008)

    It’s never too early to romanticize the past, particularly when it involves affairs of the heart. Amid today’s app-friendly hookups, where a potential relationship is a mere swipe right away, perhaps it is inevitable that a romantic comedy like Definitely, Maybe would turn to the not-so-distant and ostensibly simpler 1990s, back when the Internet was…

  • Elegy (2008)

    Adaptations of Philip Roth novels don’t generally fare well on the big screen (Goodbye Columbus, anyone?), but Elegy is the rare beast that gets it just about right. Based on Roth’s The Dying Animal, about an aging college professor grappling with inner demons and an obsession with a younger woman, Elegy avoids the pitfalls typically…

  • Everlasting Moments (2008)

    At first blush, Everlasting Moments seems like a litany of art-house clichés. Set in early 20th century Sweden, its saga of a quiet, strong-willed woman and her lout of a husband sounds pretentious enough to starch a collar, but the film transcends the sum of its well-worn plot. The great Swedish director Jan Troell, whose works include…

  • Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

    Breaking up is hard to do, as an old song once cautioned us, but that’s hardly a newsflash for anyone who has endured the agony of being dumped. Untold millions of books, movies and songs have commemorated the hell of being kicked to the proverbial curb and the subsequent tears, depression, drinking, vomiting, rebound, stalking…

  • Gonzo (2008)

    Print journalists don’t typically receive rock star status, but Hunter S. Thompson was far from a typical journalist. A booming, pill-popping gun nut with a wit that could cut glass, the not-so-good “doctor” practically invented gonzo journalism with subversive classics such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign…

  • American Teen (2008)

    They say youth is wasted on the young. That might be true, but high school is one rite of passage for which young people definitely earn their Purple Hearts. With its unforgiving caste system, peer pressures and never-ending crises, high school could reduce even the most hard-bitten survivalist into a knock-kneed mess. Regardless of your…

  • Frost/Nixon (2008)

    When Richard Nixon sought to repair his reputation with television interviews in 1977, his aides selected an interviewer they were confident would be a pushover. David Frost, a lightweight British TV talk-show host with a taste for the good life, was more accustomed to interviewing the Bee Gees than disgraced world leaders. As the riveting…

  • Doubt (2008)

    Doubt came to the big screen with some seriously formidable talent behind it, but don’t be lulled into expecting pretentious High Art. Forget for a moment that it’s an adaptation of a Pulitzer- and Tony-Award winning stage play. Forget that it stars two heavyweight master thespians in Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Forget that…