A QUARTET of nasty bourgeois, played by four top-drawer actors with crack timing, make Roman Polanski’s Carnage (showtimes here) a civilized entertainment. Based on Parisian author Yasmina Reza’s play God of Carnage, the film is …

By Richard von Busack
Should-have-been successes, musicians’ musicians that they were and are: Fishbone are profiled in Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler’s delightful Everyday Sunshine, playing at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco through Friday.
Fishbone had …

By Richard von Busack
Gary Oldman was in town to promote his lead role in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (showtimes here) as John le Carre’s smaller than life mole-hunter George Smiley. Oldman is tightly focused, shrewd …

By Richard von Busack
Sweden’s Tomas Alfredson follows up the best vampire movie of the last few years with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s about a different breed of parasites:  justifiable (sometimes self-justifiable) as Britain’s last …

By Richard von Busack
ONLY Steven Spielberg could do what is done in War Horse. Only he could have authorized the expensive World War I re-creations: a sumptuous cavalry charge, with officers Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom …

By Richard von Busack
Show up early and get into the sweet spot in a 70mm Imax Theater  meaning, near the center and back a row or two. Not only will you be the first person …

By Richard von Busack
After concluding an exceptionally busy year, the Irish/German actor Michael Fassbender is sure to be short-listed for the Oscar nominations for his role as the sex addict Brandon in Shame.
The poster, showing …

By Richard von Busack
In setting up the career of the ultimate arch-villain, Arthur Conan-Doyle may have introduced him wrong-way round. We don’t witness the moment of discovery when Sherlock Holmes first pieces together the vastness …

By Richard von Busack
Sometimes a movie is particularly irritating just because it’s about 10 degrees away from something that might have worked.
In Young Adult, Diablo Cody gets away from the arch slang of Juno: Oscar-winning …

by Richard von Busack
TAKESHI KITANO’S new film is almost plot-free but rich with incident, visual skill and loads of violence. Outrage shows the Japanese filmmaker at the top of his craft. The action consists essentially …