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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2011 Stories by Karina Longworth

• Year in Film: Ten Films We Can't Wait to Watch in 2012

  published December 28, 2011

  We know—you're excited about The Dark Knight Rises. And The Avengers. And The Hunger Games. So are we. We're also... More >>

• Year in Film: "Margaret" Is the Best Forgotten Cursed Film of 2011

  published December 28, 2011

  Margaret, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me), starring Anna Paquin with key supporting performances... More >>

• "Hugo": Scorsese Milks the 3-D Trend for His Timeless Cause

  published November 23, 2011

  Martin Scorsese's first foray into 3-D family filmmaking centers on its title character, played by Asa Butterfield, a just-pre-pubescent orphan... More >>

• "The Swell Season": Jumbled Story of Two Musicians' Angst is Dully Banal

  published November 23, 2011

  This tour doc — shot in moody, close-up-heavy black-and-white — traces a few years on the road with Glen Hansard and Markéta... More >>

• "El Bulli: Cooking in Progress": Bare-Bones Documentary Provides Feast For the Senses

  published November 9, 2011

  Molecular gastronomy star Ferran Adrià's Catalonian culinary paradise El Bulli served its last meal on July 31, as the overhead of... More >>

• Barely Skating By

  published November 9, 2011

  Dragonslayer is Tristan Patterson's lyrical and formally audacious documentary portrait of Josh “Skreech” Sandoval,... More >>

• Too Good to Be True

  published November 9, 2011

  The Swell Season is a tour doc — shot in moody, close-up-heavy black-and-white — that traces a few years on the road... More >>

• "The Skin I Live In": Campy, Creepy Tale of Vengeful Mad Scientist

  published October 19, 2011

  The mad-scientist tale has remained more or less fixed since the beginning of sound cinema: From Dr. Frankenstein's claim to "know what it... More >>

• "The Ides of March": George Clooney for President!

  published October 5, 2011

  George Clooney's fourth directorial effort is a loose adaptation of Farragut North, a 2008 behind-the-political-campaign play by Beau... More >>

• "Contagion": Steven Soderbergh's Frighteningly Smart Pandemic Thriller

  published September 7, 2011

  Currently the fifth-to-last film on Steven Soderbergh's ever-expanding pre-retirement slate, Contagion opens on day two of a global... More >>

• A Trip to Paradox

  published September 7, 2011

  Mike Ott’s moody micro-budget Littlerock patiently observes the California road trip of college-age Japanese siblings Atsuko (Atsuko... More >>

• "Our Idiot Brother": Predictable and Shallow Indie Ensemble Comedy

  published August 24, 2011

  In Jesse Peretz' Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, a kind of upstate New York version of "The Dude" Lebowski — a man out of... More >>

• "One Day": Overly Broad and Kitschy Romantic Drama

  published August 17, 2011

  Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by David Nicholls, based on his novel, One Day stars Anne Hathaway as Emma,... More >>

• "The Help": Self-Important and Shallow Hollywood Take on 1960s Race Relations

  published August 10, 2011

  More than just the Hollywood It Girl of the moment, Emma Stone is a real actress, and in The Help, she gets an ostentatious,... More >>

• "The Change-Up": Bros Switch Bodies in Puerile Comedy

  published August 3, 2011

  A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard issue anal-retentive lawyer... More >>

• "Another Earth": Shoestring Sci-Fi Meets Treacly Redemption Drama

  published July 27, 2011

  There may be nothing as Old Hollywood as the narrative about a pretty girl summoning up a dose of pluck to triumph over adversity. And yet Brit... More >>

• "Crazy Stupid Love": Sweet but Less-Than-Groundbreaking Romcom

  published July 27, 2011

  In the first scene of Crazy, Stupid, Love, Emily (Julianne Moore) tells Cal (Steve Carell), her high school sweetheart and husband of... More >>

• "Captain America": Hokey, Hacky Exercise in Franchise Building

  published July 20, 2011

  Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in 1941, Captain America was among the first American comic books intended as an... More >>

• "Horrible Bosses": Mediocre Black Comedy Mildly Comforting, Rarely Funny

  published July 6, 2011

  There's a scene in Horrible Bosses in which Jennifer Aniston, playing a dentist who habitually sexually harasses her weakling male... More >>

• Scott and Zelda as Spirit Guides

  published June 29, 2011

  A deceptively light time-travel romance, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris uses fairy-tale devices as a way to get to the filmmaker's... More >>

• "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop": Warts-and-All Tour Doc

  published June 22, 2011

  "I am angry," Conan O'Brien admits in Rodman Flender's tour doc. "I'm trying not to be ... but sometimes I'm so mad I can't even... More >>

• "Bad Teacher": Unfunny Comedy Shows Women Can Be Terrible, Too

  published June 22, 2011

  From Tad Friend's New Yorker profile of Anna Faris (which Jezebel.com reblogged under the headline... More >>

• Steve Coogan on Playing "Steve Coogan"

  published June 15, 2011

  Steve Coogan sells himself with disclaimers. He's calling from New York to talk about his new film, The Trip, which began life as a... More >>

• "Green Lantern": CGI Superheroes Don't Get More Boring Than This

  published June 15, 2011

  It's 10 minutes before a human character appears on-screen in Green Lantern, a personality-free franchise-launcher that builds toward a... More >>

• Mike Mills Unpacks His Own Life for "Beginners"

  published June 8, 2011

  "Okay, so my parents were married in 1955 and my mom knew my dad was gay and my dad knew he was gay and so I was, like, 'Why in the heck did... More >>