NYT Movie Reviews

I often find that New York Times movie reviews are really great literary pieces by themself.. here is a recent sampling

'Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont': An Aging Grande Dame and Her Youthful Caller Dame Joan Plowright endows Mrs. Palfrey with stoic charm and decency in this unabashedly sentimental film.

'The Libertine': A Noble With Big, and Fatal, Appetites Johnny Depp's beauty and talent salvage this rigorously stagy film on the life and bad-boy times of the second Earl of Rochester.

'The Boys of Baraka': Goodbye City Streets, Hello African Wilderness This rich documentary proves that inner city boys have a better chance of thriving if removed from their poor neighborhoods.

'Exist: Not a Protest Film': Two Young Radicals and Their Dovetailing Destinies By dramatizing the lives of two activists with candor, sympathy and a healthy strain of skepticism, "Exist" offers an antidote to the whimsy and solipsism endemic to much of what passes for independent filmmaking.

'First Descent': Extreme Snow and Its Enthusiasts If this chronicle of snowboarding has no more heft than a fresh coat of powder, it's awfully fun to roll around in.

'Little Man': A Story of Mothers' Love "Little Man" is an unusually honest film about the ambiguity of maternal love.

'Walk the Line': The Man in Black, on Stage and Off Johnny Cash gets the musical biopic treatment in this moderately entertaining, never quite convincing chronicle of his early years.

'The Kid and I': The Perils of Privilege A chore to watch, "The Kid and I" is self-congratulatory, excruciatingly sentimental and sloppily written and directed.

'I Love Your Work': It's Lonely, at the Top, and a Little Scary, Too Directed by the young actor Adam Goldberg, "I Love Your Work" is an attempt to say something interesting about modern celebrity.

'Be Here to Love Me': Portrait of a Problem Child With a Songwriter's Soul Margaret Brown has directed a tender, impressionistic film biography about the Texan singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

'Far Side of the Moon': A Pair of Brothers Learn How Strong Gravity Can Be It takes about 28 days for the moon to orbit the earth and approximately 60 minutes for "Far Side of the Moon" to reveal its full splendor. 12PM 2 Jan

'Transamerica': A Complex Metamorphosis of the Most Fundamental Sort 'Transamerica', starring Felicity Huffman as a pre-operative transsexual, is touching and sometimes funny, despite its overall air of indie earnestness.

'Aeon Flux': In 2415, There are Still Bad Hair Days A. O. Scott (Movies)"Aeon Flux" is best appreciated for the costumes, the sets and Charlize Theron's haughty athleticism.

'The World's Fastest Indian': An Old Man and His Bike, Chasing an Impossible Dream Stephen Holden (Movies)This based-on-fact story of a New Zealand coot who defies age by racing his motorcycle competitively is a big mushy piece of ice cream cake for Anthony Hopkins.