Quiet, Creepy, Absurd, Home Wows Critics

Almodovar's latest mixes noir with melodrama

(NEWSER) - Broken Embraces isn't quite up there with Pedro Almodovar's finest work, say critics, but the noirish tribute to '50s Hollywood looks fantastic and tells a compelling story.

• "While it may not elicit the affection reserved for some of Almodovar's more heartfelt films," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today , "Broken Embraces is a tale of lust, treachery and guilt, with artful homages to classic films."

(NEWSER) - American art houses are finally getting a taste of Katyn, legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s acclaimed film about the World War II-era massacre of the same name, and critics are heaping yet more acclaim on it. AO Scott of the New York Times calls it “solemn and searing,” while Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer says Wajda “has made a heroic effort to translate a historical crime into a saga of human hope and delusion.” More»

Salon's critic's favorite flicks are an eclectic bunch

(NEWSER) - Behold: a top 10 movies list that doesn't include The Dark Knight. In a year that's hard to sum up, Stephanie Zarachek pulls together an eclectic mix of great flicks for Salon:

• Even repeated viewings don't betray any flaws in Happy-Go-Lucky, a "luminous" tale of a London school marm by British director Mike Leigh.

France delivers excellent old-style Hollywood thriller

(NEWSER) - French thriller Tell No One has the critics rushing to tell the world how much they liked it. The fast-paced and thickly plotted adaptation of a novel by American writer Harlan Coben is "hot-blooded, haunting and packed with the pleasures of the unexpected," writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. More»

But Nicolas Cage seems to get it: critics

(NEWSER) - Critics agree: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is ridiculous. But they're divided over whether the silliness of the sequel, once again starring Nicolas Cage as the devilish superhero, is funny or just bad.

• In the Merced Sun-Star , Roger Moore calls the movie "a profoundly silly mash-up of comic book and quasi-religious 'prophecy' about a motorcyclist who sold his soul to the devil." It beats the original: "This time around, Cage and everybody else on board are in on the joke," and that makes it "almost a great bad movie."