Andre Techine has been one more the more internationally admired filmmakers for decades with films like My Favorite Season and The Wild Reeds earning him quite the reputation among Francophiles and art house aficionados. The release of a new Techine film sends at least minor waves through critical and foreign film communities in the United States (more so in Europe) but his latest, the oddly assembled The Girl on the Train, has been receiving mostly mixed reviews. It’s mostly a mixed drama with some elements that truly work and the clear fingerprint of a talented filmmaker, but it also features drastic tone changes and never quite coheres into a completely effective overall piece, ending up more “interesting” than “riveting.” There’s still more than enough to like here to warrant a look, but it’s unlikely to expand past the filmmaker’s fan base. This won’t be the flick to garner Techine the wider audience he deserves.

Working off a play based on the true story of a headline-grabbing event, The Girl on the Train tells the tale of a young girl telling a big lie; one that shines a bright light on issues of racism, anti-Semitism, and the culture of hate simmering under France in the new millennium. The (almost-too) gorgeous Emilie Dequenne plays a young woman named Jeanne, a freewheeling 22-year-old caught between the carefree days of her youth and the imminent requirements of adulthood. The child in Jeanne still has a penchant for telling lies but her mother (the always-spectacular Catherine Deneuve) has worked her into a potential position with a prestigious attorney (the also-always-spectacular Michel Blanc). Jeanne is torn between the life clearly being laid out for her by her mother and the seedy behavior and con jobs being run by her boy toy. But this is not An Education. Jeanne sees the fork in the road of her life and takes another path altogether, telling a remarkable lie for which there is no conceivable apology that could explain her behavior. Jeanne convinces the world that she ...Read More

Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass is a beautifully subversive slice of post-modern entertainment that not only dissects the hero worship that turns caped crusaders into icons in the first place but becomes a wildly enjoyable superhero action film in its own right. In the same way that Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead slowly goes from parody to becoming an honestly

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The remake is one of many cinematic tools hanging off the utility belts of heavyweight Hollywood producers. Whether golden age cinema (The Day the Earth Stood Still, King Kong), superhero movies (Superman Returns, Batman Begins), or foreign flicks (The Ring, The Departed) nothing is easier than repurposing a script for your own devices. Death at a

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One of the most notable new faces of 2010 is Aaron Johnson, who has already appeared in The Greatest and will star as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy later this year. Oh, yeah, and then there's Kick-Ass. The highly anticipated and totally awesome adaptation of the Mark Millar comic from director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust)

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With Steve Carell and Tina Fey making the switch from TV stars to movie stars with the new Date Night (the film debuted at #2, meaning that the multi-talented Carell and Fey can now safely call themselves "movie stars"), it got us thinking about that difficult journey from the small screen to the big one and why some actors and

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A romantic ghost story that shares only an unfortunate title commonality with the next installment of The Twilight Saga, The Eclipse is that true rarity in English-language cinema – a character-driven horror film. The Eclipse is far from a traditional horror film. It’s more of an old-fashioned ghost story in that the apparitions play a more significant plot role as to what they

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Cherie Currie was the lead vocalist of the Runaways, the revolutionary all-girl band in the 1970s that paved the way for female musicians on the rock and roll scene. Most popular in Europe and Japan at the time, the Runaways blended American heavy metal and punk rock with an aggressive and sexualized image, ultimately influencing famous American bands like the Go-Go’s and

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With one great performance and one good one, the two leads of The Runaways nearly make this musical drama worth a look but their heavy lifting of a generic screenplay doesn’t quite get the film over the bar enough to merit a recommendation. The Runaways is yet another tale of sex, drugs, and rock and roll set to a thumping beat but

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Television stars are regularly screwed by the Hollywood comedy machine that takes what works about them on the small screen and usually ignores their strengths and plays up their weaknesses on the big one. It's happened to the undeniably talented and charismatic stars of Date Night – Steve Carell and Tina Fey – before. Nearly any episode of The Office

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Liam Neeson continues a year of remarkably bad decisions (Chloe, Clash of the Titans, the jury is still out on The A-Team) by starring in possibly the worst film of his career – certainly one of the worst of the year to date – the remarkably stupid After.Life, a thriller with no thrills; a horror movie that's biggest scare is

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