It would be criminal to discuss the plot of Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, “The Skin I Live In,” in any linear or sensible fashion, for it would ruin the sick joke he’s setting us up for.

The best way to describe it is to lay out the unsettling images and metaphors Almodóvar fills the screen wtih for about an hour, after which, through assorted flashbacks, he gradually starts to link all the threads.

Judging from Martha Marcy May Marlene, one of the most talked-about feature films currently showing at the New York Film festival, relative newcomers writer/director Sean Durkin and actress Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley) were born with the right gene. This new thriller is so tight and poised that it appears to be the work of long-collaborating veterans (it may prove difficult for them to live up to this standard through the rest of their careers but that's a good problem for them--and us--to have to face).

If you hear the movie press machine tell it, I’m supposed to come away from 50/50 talking about how it’s a new type of cancer movie: frank, funny, and unconventionally moving and based on the real-life cancer experiences of its screenwriter, Will Reiser. Instead, I left with a cool feeling toward the film’s misogyny, something that Seth Rogen’s presence often serves as a dog whistle for. Whether intentional or not, 50/50 turns

Roman Polanski's latest effort is an adaptation of French dramatic auteur—and, for a short while, Nicolas Sarkozy confidante--Yasmine Reza's play “God of Carnage.” After being favorably received onstage, both Broadway and the West End mounted productions to mostly positive acclaim. It seems natural, then, that a film version—a ninety-minute set piece in which the characters barely leave the room

Limelight, the documentary directed by Billy Corben, is perhaps the most apologetic, mournful retelling of a party animal’s life since The People Vs. Larry Flynt, or at least, Blow. Given Corben’s kid-gloves treatment of his subject—1970s-through-‘90s dance club kingpin Peter Gatien—you may, by the end of this coke-fueled, debauchery-drenched saga, confuse Gatien with Saint Teresa of Avila herself. But whether you

No one wants to watch a movie about the Yankees. No one wants to watch Throwing Money At It: Superstars, Dollar Signs, and Left-handed Relief Pitching. No one wants to hear the story about how the Pinstripes used their massive financial advantages to hire the best coaches, scouts and players in order to forge an American League dynasty--and guess what: they did it! There is no market in the American imagination for the Goliaths of Gotham. We love the

The new short “No Direction,” written and directed by UCLA film grad Melissa Finell, follows a young college graduate named Jamie, who happens to be a lesbian, as she tries to figure out what on earth she's going to do with her brand-new philosophy degree. After some disappointing interviews and general aimlessness, Jamie falls in love with the soothing, Teutonic voice of her parents' G.P.S. and fantasizes about all the different paths

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is nothing more disappointing than a film that throws away a perfectly good premise only to find itself subsequently wallowing in mediocrity. Take for evidence the last-gasp-of-summer thriller “Apollo 18,” which lurched into theaters recently. Its promotional clips and trailers all looked tantalizing; it billed itself as the unholy offspring of “Apollo 13” and “Alien"

Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs,” released forty years ago, is perhaps the most thematically confused thriller ever made. On the surface, it’s a standard fish-out-of-water/revenge story: a stuffy professor, David (Dustin Hoffman) and his lithe, blonde, British housewife Amy (Susan George) are tormented by hooligans—including Amy’s ex-boyfriend—when they move back to her rustic England hometown. At first, these roughnecks, who

The 68th Venice Film Festival was a pandemonium of pushy, autograph-hounding journalists, hapless stargazers and underage fashionistas talking their way into exclusive parties. Walking along the beach, as the late-summer sun beat down on the Lido, it was easy to forget that this festival was about movies of differing shapes and sizes, where big Hollywood productions vied with quirky indies and inaccessible foreign productions.