Rex Reed
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Rex Reed | February 15, 2011 | 8:35 pm
Vanishing on 7th Street is the latest cryptic pseudo-sci-fi hologram by shockmeister Brad Anderson (The Machinist), a director more interested in effects than the reasons for them. It begins in a movie multiplex where a lonely projectionist (John Leguizamo) is rolling spools of film through a lens darkly when the cinema goes totally black. Roaming through the seats, he discovers that the audience has vanished, leaving their coats and popcorn in the empty seats.... MORE >
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Rex Reed | February 15, 2011 | 8:29 pm
In the bank robbery business, a "wheel man" is a skilled driver of getaway cars whose services are in great demand. An uneven but surprisingly pleasing and often entertaining low-budget indie-prod called The Chaperone is about an accidental wheel man named Ray Bradstone who lost his freedom, family and self-respect in a heist that landed him seven years in prison. Now he's out and determined to make amends, pay his debt to society and... MORE >
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Rex Reed | February 15, 2011 | 8:26 pm
A fine actor who has played everyone from Oscar Wilde to Alfred Kinsey with great acclaim, Liam Neeson seems to have embarked on a new career of making one cheesy bomb after another. Maybe he's bored. Maybe he just wants to soak up the money and throw in the bath mat. Maybe he needs to give up the notion of being a movie star and return to the stage. Maybe he needs a new... MORE >
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Rex Reed | February 8, 2011 | 8:26 pm
It seems like yesterday when Brooke Shields lit our lashes as pedophile bait in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby. From adolescent prostitute to hip-swiveling Rizzo in Grease and killer babe with a heart of pure platinum in Broadway's Chicago, America's personality-packed sweetheart has lived more lives than a cat on roller skates. She calls her stint as the Ivory Soap baby at 11 months old "the last time I didn't need a body double."... MORE >
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Rex Reed | February 8, 2011 | 8:21 pm
Ambitiously set in the second century, The Eagle is a codpiece-and-crossbow saga of relentlessly exciting battle sequences sandwiched between tedious, unconvincing chatter about cantankerous centurions, fiery feudal warriors and camera-ready six-pack abs modeled by hunky pinups Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell. It isn't going to win any awards for artistic excellence, but with two 8x10 glossies flexing their glutes from here to the middle of next week and an able support group that includes... MORE >
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Rex Reed | February 8, 2011 | 8:13 pm
Already off to a disastrous start, 2011 sees its junk pile grow higher with an alleged "comedy" by director Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl) that is unlikely to connect with any comic-book reader sporting a 70-point I.Q., but will undoubtedly be a big hit with the kind of people who thrive on Will Ferrell movies. Cedar Rapids is a ribald collection of stale corporate-convention jokes, hateful put-downs of women and filthy one-liners... MORE >
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Rex Reed | January 18, 2011 | 9:01 pm
Perfection is not an overused word in the cabaret world, but I use it without reservation when making even a feeble effort to describe Christine Ebersole's dynamic, touching, beautifully conceived new act at the Café Carlyle. Unencumbered by the phony titles and pointless concepts that plague other "theme" shows, she simply steps to the postage-stamp stage, splendid and glowing bright like a sunflower nourished by neon, shaking her fluffy blond coif in her above-the-knee... MORE >
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Rex Reed | January 18, 2011 | 8:57 pm
Painstakingly shot, frame by frame, and with accurate writing and impeccable performances, and guided by the great Australian director Peter Weir's impressive trademark attention to detail, The Way Back saves January from the dumpster and triumphs as the first great film of... MORE >
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Rex Reed | January 18, 2011 | 8:49 pm
After a string of flops, the lovely, accomplished and underappreciated Natalie Portman achieved something of a career breakthrough in the pretentious horror flick Black Swan. Now, before the impact has worn off, and on the verge of an Oscar nomination, she crumbles like a mildewed crumpet. Short of breaking into the editing lab and destroying the negative, she should have done everything legally possible to stop the ill-timed release of a vulgar, stupid pile... MORE >
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Rex Reed | January 11, 2011 | 7:55 pm
In the musical husband-wife tradition of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, and John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, we now have ace pianist Eric Comstock and his wife, Barbara Fasano, who pop the cork on the 2011 cabaret season with a new act at the Algonquin called "Helluva Town," a compilation of carefully picked tunes about the love-hate relationship New Yorkers have with the noisiest, filthiest and most exciting town in... MORE >
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Rex Reed | January 11, 2011 | 7:44 pm
If you haven't reached the end of your attention span for dysfunctional families, here comes another one in Richard Levine's Every Day. Liev Schreiber is absolutely perfect as Ned, a well-paid TV scriptwriter who appears to have it all--colorful job, perfect home, loving wife and two mature, intelligent sons with promising futures. But beneath the surface, Ned is in crisis, and festering scabs are ready to erupt; after 19 years of career and marriage... MORE >
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Rex Reed | January 11, 2011 | 7:37 pm
At the movies, January is traditionally the dullest month of the year--a dumping ground for the leftover flotsam that wasn't good (or commercially viable) enough to release in time for box office potential or awards consideration at the end of the previous year. Get ready for another... MORE >
The word "goodbye" takes on a somber and rueful new meaning as I begin the annual task of wrapping up an old year by waving adios to the man with the scythe. We lost so many famous and celebrated people in 2010 that by midsummer I already had 35 pages of names. "Attention must be paid," wrote Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman, and that applies to one and... MORE >
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Rex Reed | December 14, 2010 | 10:15 pm
Our esteemed critic picks the best and worst films of the year. Check out the slideshow versions below, complete with links to Rex's reviews. Rex Reed's Perfect 10 Rex Reed's Imperfect 10 The... MORE >
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Rex Reed | December 14, 2010 | 10:14 pm
Although we are in the midst of the annual December gridlock of last-minute releases glutting the market in time to qualify for a marathon of critical and industry awards shows, this will be my last movie column of 2010. Therefore, I will adjust my glasses, gulp an aspirin and endeavor, by popular demand, to ignore release dates and clock in with a roundup of the final main events on the overcrowded year-end calendar: RABBIT... MORE >
