RECOMMENDED: Every movie coming out this week eats giant plates of many dicks, so do like we’re doing, and SEND HOLLYWOOD A MESSAGE: Lilyhammer is Netflix’s first original series (translation: you can only get it on a Netflix), and it stars Steven Van Zandt from Sopranos/E Street Band/Little Steven’s Underground Garage. It should not be [...]

RECOMMENDED: The Woman in Black, which is the scary movie starring Harry Potter. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, it kind of feels like GAME ON right now in the battle of a lifetime wherein Harry Potter is done being Harry Potter, but is going to have to do all of this [...]

RECOMMENDED: Written and directed by Gerardo Naranjo, Miss Bala tells the story of an aspiring beauty queen in present day Mexico who — whoops! — ends up as a drug mule. With accolades at Cannes and a near-brush with an Oscar nom for Best Foreign Language pic this year, it’s part of a growing canon [...]

RECOMMENDED: Make no mistake: The Iron Lady will troll you worse than a racist commenter on Philly.com; only the difference here is that instead of the trolls’ spoils being your rage, here the object is you speculating what kind of Oscar Bait the movie is. Well, in some ways, it’s the worst kind, but in [...]

RECOMMENDED: Studio Exec: “OK, Cronenberg, here’s the elevator pitch: Everybody loves Sigmund Freud. Everybody also loves Carl Jung. What if we put them in a room, a la a reality show, and watch them duke it out to see which one’s the bigger man? Winner gets to bone Keira Knightley.” David Cronenberg: “Shit, wow. Keira [...]

RECOMMENDED: It may come as a shock, but we’re not kidding here when we say Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol is on of the better action films we’ve seen in a very long time. We can only speak for the IMAX screening (seriously, if you can, see it in IMAX) but the scenes were shot [...]

RECOMMENDED: Well, obviously you should see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. A remake (eek) of a British spy mini-series starring Gary Oldman (yay) and about 40 other super-great English actors. Seriously, everyone is in this. Plus, it’s directed by the dude who directed Let the Right One In, and not the American one. Also, this thing [...]

RECOMMENDED: The Other F Word, a documentary about punk-rock parents opens at the Ritz Bourse, and … well … that’s pretty much it. However, if you plan to stay in some night in the next 20-some days and watch a holiday film, the good people over at Cinedelphia have some recommendations. They asked some people [...]

RECOMMENDED: Because we regard it as a foregone conclusion that you will voraciously devour The Muppets as quickly as possible and by any means necessary, let us turn our attentions to Hugo, Martin Scorsese‘s 3D movie for (very, very smart) kids. Ponder that last phrase for a bit, and wonder what we wondered: Is such [...]

RECOMMENDED: What a different world it was the last time Antonio Banderas and director Pedro Almodóvar made a movie together: After starring in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Banderas went Hollywood, eventually making you forget everything there once was to like about him. Meanwhile, Almodóvar went along in his own quiet-loud way, steadily putting [...]

RECCOMENDED: The always controversial Lars von Trier‘s Melancholia begins showing at the Ritz Bourse today. Sporting a strong 79% on Rotten Tomatoes (with many reviews praising the work of frequently mediocre Kirsten Dunst), Melancholia is a disaster movie that has cataclysmic destruction going on both inside and inside of the mind. You know, if you’re [...]

This weekend, The 20th Anniversary Philadelphia Film Festival rages on. We’ve been lucky enough to catch a handful of screenings this week, and just like we suspected, this year’s Fest has been extremely well selected. But as most of the screenings in our earlier preview have already passed, we figured we’d pony up another round [...]

RECOMMENDED: Our summer — if not indeed our entire worldview — was in part revolutionized by both Mike Mills’ Beginners (saw it twice, it’s still at the Ritz, GO NOW) and this NYT Mag profile on Mills’ wife and You And Me And Everyone We Know director, Miranda July. That profile was written in anticipation [...]

RECOMMENDED: The whole movie is given away in the trailer, but who cares: Go see Crazy Stupid Love, because it stars two of the most beautiful gingers in the world (Julianne Moore/Emma Stone) and Bradley Cooper isn’t in it. And because it’s a heat wave and your brain is too melty to process Sarah’s Key, [...]

RECOMMENDED: Chris Evans stars at the titular superhero in Joe Johnston‘s (October Sky, Jumanji) Captain America: The First Avenger. As the final Marvel Studios film to feed into next summer’s The Avengers, Captain America spends most of its time in Cap’s WWII-era origin tale. The film falls somewhere between good and great, supported by great [...]

RECOMMENDED: Let’s table the whole “death of narrative cinema” debate for a moment and simply assume that, yes, this notion is at least passingly true: Does this mean that the Harry Potter franchise is the last thing most of us could all, at once, ever truly agree on? If it is, it’s a pretty great [...]

RECOMMENDED/ABSOLUTELY GO SEE THIS BEFORE IT LEAVES THE RITZ: We mentioned director Mike Mills‘ Beginners in passing here a few weeks ago, but having taken it in and absolutely falling in love with the picture whilst hiding from Welcome America last weekend, we feel we must revisit: This is a truly great movie. Ostensibly a [...]

QFest, the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance‘s annual festival of queer films, completely snuck up on us; the fest begins tomorrow, this year promising “the best in lesbian filmmaking.” This year’s lineup includes two French numbers we wouldn’t mind checking out — Gigola and Tomboy — but we’re also wondering what’s on your tipsheet. Let us know [...]

RECOMMENDED: We always thought Cameron Diaz got kind of a raw deal in the last decade, and could never quite figure out how she went from being one of the hottest commodities on the globe to being just some regular ol’ Perez Hilton ground chuck. Perhaps it’s a magnified version of The Zooey Deschanel Problem [...]

We recommend the latter. RECOMMENDED: The Trip (trailer above) is a film cut down from a TV series of the same name starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Looks to be one of the funnier films of the year; and you get the benefit of trying before you buy since many of the clips from [...]