Tara Thorne

Though the marketing would have you believe this is a love story between a snowman, a reindeer and the carrot that brought them together, Frozen is actually a kickass girl power tale about the greatest love of all (yourself, duh). When princess Elsa (Idina Menzel) accidentally hurts her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) with her unexplained […]

A near word-for-word remake—second credited screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa must’ve added the internet stuff—of the 1976 horror classic, Kimberly Peirce’s version of Carrie is an unnecessary update with its own charm nonetheless (and 100 percent less full-frontal nudity, thankfully). Chloe Grace Moretz is Carrie, the high schooler who gets her first period in gym class—with even […]

There was a time in the 1980s when Meryl Streep was very respected but seeing her movies felt like homework, what with all the dour subject matters and accents. The same can be said of Watermark, a well-made but dull documentary about water from Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky, whose lauded Manufactured Landscapes was a […]

The opening shot of Gravity, the real-time space disaster drama directed by Alfonso Cuarón, is a 17-minute single-take marvel. Cuarón does this better than anyone, if anyone else even tries. (Go back and watch the multiple incredibly detailed one-take setpieces that comprise his 2006 stunner Children of Men.) The difference with Gravity is that he […]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts his notable energy into three roles (writer, director, star) as the titular Don Jon, about a Jersey boy who’s letting porn getting in the way of finding his Snooki (Scarlett Johansson). The movie’s hyper-kinetic, quick-cut visual style (with lots of real porn spliced in) paired with JGL’s put-on Jersey honk and Xavier […]

Nicole Holofcener, America’s most unjustly unheralded writer-director, turns in her fifth terrific comedic drama centring on relationships, romance and emotional evolution—that’s right, Enough Said is another one of her women’s pictures. Regular muse Catherine Keener takes a supporting role to allow Julia Louis-Dreyfus her first starring film role ever—think about that—as a masseur fumbling into […]

Some guy overheard some kids saying breakdancing wasn’t cool anymore and now we all have to suffer. In this near-incompetent, half-assed “fictionalization” of Planet B-Boy (a “dope” documentary that’s “like our Bible” from which many clips are shown), Lost’s Josh Holloway does a Drunk History version of Coach Eric Taylor (catchphrase: “You are champions. Be […]

Who knew we were missing Kurt Russell until he showed up in this completely fine Canadian heist movie? A stunt motorcyclist slash art thief working under the awesome name Crunch Calhoun (the guy Ryan Gosling would’ve grown up to be if he hadn’t been murdered in The Place Beyond the Pines), Russell carries a weirdo […]