St. Louis Movie Reviews - St. Louis Movies Guide

Movie Reviews

Pain Is Not Pleasure: Lars von Trier puts his match-made-in-Hell couple, and his audience, through the ringer

Lars von Trier's doggedly outrageous, fearsomely ambitious two-hander is so desperate to make you feel something — if only a terrible... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: October 28, 2009

Bad for the Jews: Self-hating or just everyone-hating? The Coen Brothers aim their contempt at MOTs.

The Yiddish shtetl shtick that opens Joel and Ethan Coen's new movie — a Jewish peasant stumbles on an old Hasid who may or may not be a... More>>

By Ella Taylor

Published: October 28, 2009

One Vampire Movie That Really Sucks: Cirque du Freak tries to get in on the trend. Fails.

Like the ominous fingernail moon early on in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, the bloodsucker trend is again in a waxing phase thanks to... More>>

By Aaron Hillis

Published: October 21, 2009

Let the Mild Rumpus Start! Max and the gang's all here, but Spike Jonze can't quite get the spirit of the Wild Things onscreen

Directed by Spike Jonze from a 400-word children's picture book first published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are may be the toughest adaptation... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: October 14, 2009

Truth in Advertising: Somers Town gets at the heart of working-class London.

And it might sell some train tickets, too.

The title of Shane Meadows' Somers Town refers to the bleak working-class neighborhood that lies in the shadow of London's St. Pancras train... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: October 07, 2009

The Awful Truth: Attn: Wall Street. Michael Moore is a Marxist (but he's still selling the same old shtick).

The ushers at a packed screening of Michael Moore's latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, came proudly decked out in T-shirts bearing slogans... More>>

By Ella Taylor

Published: September 30, 2009

Half-Truth: Ricky Gervais can only get so far, or so funny, with The Invention of Lying

The Invention of Lying's plot hook sounds like a pile-up of Jim Carrey–Tom Shadyac concept comedies. The assumption is that there isn't... More>>

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: September 30, 2009

Tone Poem: More harmonious than tumultuous, Bright Star is an ode to John Keats' great love affair

Set in the bucolic suburbs of early-nineteenth-century London, as fresh and dewy as a newly mowed lawn, Jane Campion's Bright Star recounts the... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: September 23, 2009

No Exclamation Point Necessary: The Informant! gets cute with massive corporate scandal and blows the story

As evidenced by The Informant!, it's a hell of a tricky thing turning real-life pulp into floss sugar. The story of Archer Daniels Midland... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: September 16, 2009

Family Business: Papa Coppola returns, successfully, to the clan

As Tetro, Francis Ford Coppola's baroque genealogical melodrama, reaches its appropriately hysterical denouement, Vincent Gallo fixes his pale... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: September 16, 2009

Fashion Victim: The September Issue captures Vogue's lioness at her peak. Goodbye to all of that!

When, in the early '00s, I worked as a freelancer for a publication two floors below Vogue — this was pre-Devil Wears Prada — each... More>>

By Melissa Anderson

Published: September 09, 2009

Thingamabob Vs. Machine: Shane Acker creates an animated post-apocalyptic hellscape. WALL-E would never get out alive.

Early in Shane Acker's computer-animated debut feature 9, a diminutive anthropomorphic whatsit with wooden hands, copper fingers, and the titular... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: September 09, 2009

Labor Pains: With Extract, Mike Judge goes back to work

Mike Judge began writing the screenplay for Extract not long after Office Space opened and closed in a matter of weeks in the late winter of... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: September 02, 2009

Sub in Lorna: The Dardennes do what they do, again

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, secular worker-priests of the Belgian cinema, emerge once more from their lower depths. In describing one of their... More>>

By Nick Pinkerton

Published: September 02, 2009

Ruining Woodstock: Who knew three days of peace & music would oppress us for 40 years? (Plus: this movie)

If you remember Woodstock, you probably weren't there," the expression goes. And if you were, can you please stop gassing on about it? Aquarian... More>>

By Melissa Anderson

Published: August 26, 2009

Swish!: Matthew Krentz's local hoops drama Streetballers lands in theaters at last

When Matthew Krentz set out six years ago to create a feature-length film in St. Louis, he had no idea that making the movie would be the easiest... More>>

By Chad Garrison

Published: August 19, 2009

Quentin's Final Solution!: In a triumph of his will, Tarantino makes Holocaust revisionism ridiculously fun

Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is a consummate Hollywood entertainment — rich in fantasy... More>>

By J. Hoberman

Published: August 19, 2009

The Big Blue: Miyazaki dives under the sea for his latest environmental fairy tale

In the same week that the South African import District 9 gives us a Johannesburg beset by alien invaders, the latest film by animation legend... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: August 12, 2009

Divide and Conquer: Alien invasion as apartheid metaphor? It works in District 9.

The aliens have been with us for twenty years already at the start of South African director Neill Blomkamp's fast and furiously inventive... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: August 12, 2009

That Other Rumble in the Jungle: Documenting an epic concert in Zaire, Soul Power puts on quite a show

"When you bad," boasts the young and beautiful, piss-and-vinegar-filled Muhammad Ali early in the documentary Soul Power, "you can do what you... More>>

By Ernest Hardy

Published: August 12, 2009

Not Bad for Government Work: Spoofing the runup to war, In the Loop is political satire done right

In the Loop doesn't necessarily mean you're in the know. In Armando Iannucci's movie, a satire of the run-up to war with a Middle Eastern... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: August 05, 2009

Top Chef: In praise of the Julia half of Julie & Julia

It was the best of movies. It was the worst of movies. Which is to say: There’s half of a great movie in Julie & Julia -- but since Meryl... More>>

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: August 05, 2009

It's a Wacky Life: Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler, together at last

After devoting his first two films as director, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, to getting laid and having kids, respectively, Judd Apatow... More>>

By Scott Foundas

Published: July 29, 2009

Vamp It Up: Local film Shadowland held over at the Tivoli through August 6

Back in 2006, as the financial backing for Shadowland was being arranged, writer/director Wyatt Weed learned of the stipulation that the film... More>>

By Kristie McClanahan

Published: July 22, 2009

Rink-o-Rama: The Rink rocks and rolls with the local history of a favorite pastime

For most people, "roller-skating" conjures fond-but-painful memories of careening around a hardwood floor at a birthday party, legs sliding out... More>>

By Keegan Hamilton

Published: July 22, 2009