Email Author Karina Longworth

Awards

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  Film reviews

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club, published February 5, 2010

  "Sundance's Rebel Yell"

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2012 Stories by Karina Longworth

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  COVER STORY

  The Year in Film: Quentin Tarantino Goes Big

  published December 26, 2012

  Illustration by Justin Crutchley Quentin Tarantino has been... More >>

• The Year in Film: Top 10 Movies of 2012

  published December 26, 2012

  More than ever, boiling this concluding year down to the 10 "best" movies feels both arbitrary and reductive. Ideally, I'd have 25 unnumbered... More >>

• Rise Up

  published December 12, 2012

  It's 1965, the rainy end of summer on the rocky coast of a fictional New England isle. Twelve-year-old Sam (Jared Gilman), a scrawny outcast,... More >>

• "Generation P": Psychedelic Post-Soviet Satire

  published December 5, 2012

  Billed as "the first and only Russian film that poked sharp satire at the current Russian political system and the virtuality of its leaders,"... More >>

• "Killing Them Softly": Crime Is Just Business

  published November 28, 2012

  An adaptation of George V. Higgins's 1974 novel Cogan's Trade, Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly anatomizes a self-policing... More >>

• Puppets and Starlets: Sean Baker Goes Inside the Porn Biz

  published November 28, 2012

  Sean Baker's Starlet stars Dree Hemingway (Ernest's great-granddaughter) as Jane, a 21-year-old "girl next door" porn performer whose... More >>

• "The Comedy": Look at This Fucking Movie

  published November 21, 2012

  Could there be a more unsympathetic character in today's culture than a well-born white male who uses his privilege irresponsibly? A highly... More >>

• "Hitchcock": The Making of "Psycho" Should Be More Interesting

  published November 21, 2012

  Early in Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins with a sack of fat connecting chin to neck) walks the red carpet at... More >>

• "Silver Linings Playbook": Mostly Cloudy Storytelling

  published November 14, 2012

  Silver Linings Playbook, which stars Bradley Cooper as a manic-depressive man-child attempting to get his life back together after a... More >>

• Get Hitched

  published November 14, 2012

  Early in Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins with a sack of fat connecting chin to neck) walks the red carpet... More >>

• "Skyfall": Laying Bare the Unknowable Spy

  published November 7, 2012

  If Hollywood's rut du jour is the origin story as bid for franchise immortality, you can't say that Skyfall — the 23rd "official"... More >>

• "The Loneliest Planet": Where Guides Don't Go

  published October 31, 2012

  The Loneliest Planet begins with close-up trained on the body of a beautiful woman, naked and trembling. It's not what it sounds like.... More >>

• "The Bay": Barry Levinson Aspires to YouTube

  published October 31, 2012

  Found-footage eco-horror cheapie The Bay — in which a previously harmless waterborne parasite mutates into an unstoppable... More >>

• "Middle of Nowhere": In L.A., Real Life Flourishes

  published October 24, 2012

  When Ruby (played by the stunning Emayatzy Corinealdi) tells the new man in her life she likes "indie" movies, it's both a declaration of... More >>

• "Wake in Fright": The Wickedest Walkabout Returns, Lurid as Ever

  published October 24, 2012

  As director Ted Kotcheff told Senses of Cinema magazine, when Aussie grindhouse creeper Wake in Fright premiered at the Cannes... More >>

• "Fun Size": The Teen Comedy That's Not Bad For You

  published October 24, 2012

  Gossip Girl and The O.C., the two teen TV shows created in the past decade by 36-year-old Josh Schwartz, are sly bait and... More >>

• "Argo": Ben Affleck Asks Us to Love Hollywood Again

  published October 10, 2012

  Perhaps more than any other male American star of his generation, Ben Affleck understands the narrative advantage of having Hollywood on your... More >>

• "V/H/S": Poorly Acted Horror for the Video Generation

  published October 3, 2012

  In the faux-found-footage horror anthology V/H/S (containing material directed by Joe Swanberg, Adam Wingard, Ti West, and others), a... More >>

• "Detropia": A Moving Portrait of a Great City's Fall

  published September 26, 2012

  When it comes to cost-cutting, downsizing, and philosophical and practical compromise, how low is it possible to go before there's nothing left... More >>

• "The Perks of Being a Wallflower": Teen Angst in the Naughties

  published September 26, 2012

  As someone who was in college when Napster happened, I'd love to see a period piece re-creating teen life during the last moments before... More >>

• "The Master": You Aren't Expecting What Anderson Is Giving

  published September 19, 2012

  There's something startlingly noncommittal about many of the initial reviews of The Master that leaked out following the impromptu... More >>

• TIFF Report: A Glimpse of This Year's Most Bracing Films

  published September 19, 2012

  A critic's report from a film festival like Toronto, where something like 300 features were unveiled from Sept. 6 through 16, can be something... More >>

• Conversion Therapy

  published September 12, 2012

  In admitting that "Master" Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, offering a new twist on the roiling vulnerability Anderson has always... More >>

• Art of Darkness

  published September 5, 2012

  It’s hard to imagine an experimental Danish documentary siphoning off too much Best Actor attention. But make no mistake: in The Ambassador,... More >>

• "The Ambassador": Prankish Doc Exposes the Heart of Darkness

  published August 29, 2012

  The blitzkrieg of award season is right around the corner, and with it, we can expect an onslaught of stunt performances, designed to wow... More >>