Email Author Nick Pinkerton

2010 Stories by Nick Pinkerton

• "Red Hill": Australian cop movie falls into cliches

  published December 29, 2010

  Patrick Hughes' feature debut starts out promisingly enough, setting the table for a square-meal genre picture. Relocated big-city cop Shane... More >>

• "Hadewijch": A nun is tested, with disturbing results

  published December 29, 2010

  With excessive ardency and prayers addressing Christ like an absent lover, postulant nun Celine (Julie Sokolowski) draws the disapproval of... More >>

• Hard Road to Salvation

  published December 29, 2010

  With excessive ardency and prayers addressing Christ like an absent lover, postulant nun Céline (Julie Sokolowski) in Hadewijch... More >>

• "Little Fockers": Ben Stiller's franchise has seen better days

  published December 22, 2010

  Just in time for the whole family to file into the multiplex on a silent Christmas night when there's nowhere else to go: a return to the... More >>

• "All Good Things": Little truth in true-crime story

  published December 15, 2010

  Generously bankrolled (then shelved) by an imperiled Weinstein Company and peopled with Oscar nominees, it's tempting to call All Good... More >>

• "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader": The Narnia franchise gets another chance

  published December 8, 2010

  A massive project, taken up lightly by Disney in the giddy post–Lord of the Rings atmosphere and dropped upon failing to return... More >>

• "Let Me In": Puppy-love romance with vampires

  published September 29, 2010

  An orphan for all practical purposes, 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) has been left to sprout like a weed. At home, he gets sparse... More >>

• "The Romantics": College friends reunite for bad behavior

  published September 22, 2010

  As Galt Niederhoffer's comedy of no manners begins, seven college friends, now closing in on their 30s, come together for the wedding of two of... More >>

• "Wall Street 2": Oliver Stone lets the bad guys off easy

  published September 22, 2010

  Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps doesn't have the clean, fable-like arc of its predecessor, the tale of the Fox and the... More >>

• “The Town”: Ben Affleck is a bank robber seeking redemption

  published September 15, 2010

  Directing himself as a verifiable big-movie lead after some time in supporting-actor Triple-A ball, director and star Ben Affleck models a full... More >>

• "The Last Exorcism": A welcome twist on demonic possession

  published August 25, 2010

  With a small, well-chosen cast; sly script; and slippery, ambivalent characters, The Last Exorcism gives a welcome twist to the... More >>

• "The Expendables": Sly, Dolph, Jason, Jet, and friends get nostalgically brutal

  published August 11, 2010

  If the money's right, we don't care where the job is." So explains the leader of hired-gun task force the Expendables, Barney Ross (Sylvester... More >>

• "The Other Guys": Will Ferrell and Adam McKay reteam

  published August 4, 2010

  After obligatory helicopter views of New York's skyline open Adam McKay's The Other Guys, we're introduced to Danson and Highsmith... More >>

• "Inception," an Important Picture, tries to get inside our heads

  published July 14, 2010

  Inception is a chilling trip into the psyche ... of writer-director Christopher Nolan, an Anglo-American action director who shattered... More >>

• Celebrity Vacation

  published June 23, 2010

  You've probably seen the poster for Grown Ups, with its stars — Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Kevin... More >>

• Kung fu hustle: Karate Kid remake is too cynical

  published June 9, 2010

  Like its predecessor, 2010's Harald Zwart–directed The Karate Kid begins with an uprooting. Young Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and his... More >>

• Best Worst Movie

  published June 2, 2010

  Michael Paul Stephenson, director of Best Worst Movie, debuted in straight-to-video as the freckled kiddie in Troll 2. Shot in Utah... More >>

• "Splice": One crazy test-tube mutant of a movie

  published June 2, 2010

  Though Sundance-screened and sporting an upscale cast, writer-director Vincenzo Natali's Splice has a mad science quality. He has... More >>

• The City of Your Final Destination

  published May 19, 2010

  James Ivory and cast make every scene flutter with feeling in this adaptation of Peter Cameron's 2002 novel, written for the screen by Ivory's... More >>

• Iron Man 2

  published May 5, 2010

  As Iron Man 2 begins, Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark—mechanical genius, Forbes 400 perennial, the pop-star CEO of Stark... More >>

• "Iron Man 2" will lead to 3, but that doesn't mean it's good

  published May 5, 2010

  As Iron Man 2 begins, Tony Stark — mechanical genius, Forbes 400 perennial, the pop-star CEO of Stark Industries — has... More >>

• Why Won't You Die?

  published April 28, 2010

  If audiences are willing to pretend that they've never seen Freddy Krueger — and the crowd I was with was primed — at least give... More >>

• "It Came from Kuchar" documents amateurs for life

  published April 14, 2010

  A few years and 2,500 miles apart, teenagers inspired by photos of Dad in uniform and From Here to Eternity undertake their separate 8mm... More >>

• Crazy Heart

  published April 7, 2010

  Yesterday's honky-tonk hero, Bad Blake, arrives at a Clovis, New Mexico, bowling alley. It's another in a string of low-pay, low-turnout gigs with... More >>

• Red Riding Trilogy

  published February 24, 2010

  Red Riding originated in the novels of David Peace, who looked back without nostalgia to the Yorkshire of his youth. Peace's four Red... More >>