Articles by Steve Vineberg

Film

People Like Us

Directed by Alex Kurtzman

Aug 09, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Though this movie wants to be about and for adults, it’s hamstrung by the soap-opera mentality of its writers, Roberto Orci and Jody Lambert, and its director, Alex Kurtzman.

Film

Take This Waltz

Directed by Sarah Polley

Aug 06, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

This low-key, intimate Canadian film is in danger of passing by unnoticed. An anatomy of two relationships—a marriage and a court­ship that overlap—the film is excitingly fresh and unconventional, and one of the few bright spots in a dim summer movie season.

Film

Prometheus

Directed by Ridley Scott

Jul 11, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

The extraterrestrial vistas in Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s prequel to his 1979 blockbuster hit Alien, are handsome (Dariusz Wolski shot them), but the movie is an expensive dud, dull and incoherent.

Film

To Rome with Love

Written and directed by Woody Allen

Jul 09, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Lit by the prodigious cinematographer Darius Khondji, Rome looks glorious in Woody Allen’s latest, an omnibus of four loosely connected comedies in different styles. The movie is a pleasant diversion, if rather clumsy in its construction.

Film

Dark Shadows

Directed by Tim Burton

Jun 15, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Dark Shadows, Tim Burton’s film of the popular camp-gothic soap opera from the ’60s and early ’70s, is silly and over the top. But it has a marvelous, billowing look, and it’s quite entertaining.

Film

Marvel’s The Avengers

Written and directed by Joss Whedon

Jun 11, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Writer-director Joss Whedon, the creator of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, saves the world from destruction yet again in the first of the summer blockbusters, Marvel’s The Avengers. The adventure is moderately enjoyable but rather exhausting.

Film

Monsieur Lazhar

Written and directed by Philippe Falardeau

May 21, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Movies about education are seldom convincing; their depiction of what goes on in the classroom hardly ever tallies with our own experiences. So the sweet and poignant Quebecois film Monsieur Lazhar is a rare pleasure.

Film

Bully

Directed by Lee Hirsch

May 14, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully rings false from beginning to end. The film wants to sound alarm bells about the prevalence of bullying in public schools, which is certainly a very real problem. But like the recently completed trilogy of TV documentaries about the child murders at Robin Hood Hills and the young men who were evidently scapegoated for the crime, the movie has a tawdry, voyeuristic quality that keeps distracting you from its alleged agenda.

Film

John Carter

Directed by Andrew Stanton

Apr 18, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

There’s no faster way for a movie to earn the disdain of critics than to rack up exorbitant costs and then fall on its face. And yes, John Carter, based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy A Princess of Mars, would be a better picture if it ­hadn’t cost $250 million, most of which is clearly visible in the overextended, dull Martian battle sequences.

Film

The Hunger Games

Directed by Gary Ross

Apr 16, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

The Hunger Games, Gary Ross’s film version of the first novel in Suzanne Collins’s young adult sci-fi trilogy, is a predictable hit after the biggest opening weekend since ancient Rome staged gladiatorial combats. But that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

Film

The Woman in Black

Directed by James Watkins

Mar 22, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

The Gothic The Woman in Black, based on a Susan Hill novel and set in turn-of-the-century England, is so terrifying that it feels like a classic of its type.

Film

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Directed by Stephen Daldry

Mar 21, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

It takes a tremendous amount of delicacy and tact to pull off a movie about 9/11 without making the audience feel it's been strong-armed. Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel of the same name, puts you through the wringer.

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Man on a Ledge

Directed by Asger Leth

Feb 22, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Man on a Ledge is a nifty little entertainment about an ex-cop (Sam Worth­ing­ton) framed for stealing a diamond owned by a ruthless magnate (Ed Har­ris). He escapes from custody and stages a suicide threat on the window ledge of Harris's hotel as a diversion while his allies break into his accuser's vault to prove the theft was a hoax.

Film

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Directed by David Fincher

Feb 20, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

David Fincher's film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should please fans of Stieg Larsson's Millen­nium Trilogy. Fincher and his screenwriter, Steven Zaillian, remain faithful to the complicated plot of the trilogy's first book, and they reproduce most of its many characters. In truth they improve vastly on their source material.

Film

The Iron Lady

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd

Jan 25, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

The Iron Lady, which stars Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, is the worst biopic since Nixon. It's so cautious that it lacks a coherent point of view, and it's so scattered that it tells you almost exactly nothing.

Film

The Interrupters

Directed by Steve James

Jan 23, 2012 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Documentarian Steve James has a journalist's nose for a great story. His beat is the challenges faced by low-income city kids, in this case young Chicagoans whose lives are blighted by the cycle of violence.

Film

Like Crazy

Directed by Drake Doremus

Dec 29, 2011 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Like Crazy is a love story about an American boy (Anton Yelchin) and an English girl (Felicity Jones) who meet in their final year of college in Los Angeles, fall in love and opt to spend the summer together in the States before she returns to London.

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War Horse

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Dec 26, 2011 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

War Horse is ideal material for Steven Spiel­berg. His adaptation of the children's novel by Michael Morpurgo comes to the screen by way of the celebrated National Theatre stage version, which has been entrancing audiences of all ages on Broadway since last season.

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Footloose

Directed by Craig Brewer

Dec 05, 2011 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

Craig Brewer, the extraordinary young director of Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan, brings his sharp ear for southern culture's tone and rhythms to this remake of a 1998 pop musical (itself a remake of a 1984 film) set in a small Georgia town. The problem is that the material is still Footloose.

Film

50/50

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Nov 30, 2011 reviewed by Steve Vineberg

50/50 is a balancing act: a comedy-drama about a man who learns he has a tumor and a 50 percent chance of surviving. Writer Will Reiser and director Jonathan Levine pull off twin feats: they sustain a tone midway between ironic and poignant, and they touch the audience without pushing pathos at us.