Email Author Nick Pinkerton

2012 Stories by Nick Pinkerton

• "Bernie": Black Excels in Weird, Affecting True-Crime Story

  published May 16, 2012

  The script for Bernie was in part dictated from the stand: In a 1997 murder trial in Carthage, Texas, Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede, a... More >>

• "Mansome": Spurlock Investigates the Age of Manscaping

  published May 16, 2012

  "I think that men are having an identity crisis, but they don't really know it." So says "biological anthropologist" Helen Fisher, speaking in... More >>

• "Dark Shadows": Burton and Depp Aren't at Their Best

  published May 9, 2012

  Dark Shadows slips the Tim Burton treatment to the supernaturally themed daily daytime soap of the same name, which aired on ABC from... More >>

• "God Bless America": Welcome to Bobcat Goldthwait's Rage

  published May 9, 2012

  In one week, Frank (Joel Murray), a divorced, fiftyish, glumly alcoholic white-collar worker, loses his job, becomes completely estranged from... More >>

• "Michael": Neat, Tidy, Nauseating Profile of a Pedophile

  published May 9, 2012

  Michael (Michael Fuith) is a thirtysomething unmarried insurance agent who, by necessity, meticulously keeps up domestic ritual. Michael, you... More >>

• "A Little Bit of Heaven": Kate Hudson Can't Resuscitate Plot

  published May 2, 2012

  A successful young New Orleans ad exec living a no-frills, booty-on-call, single-by-choice lifestyle, Marley Corbett has a sunny irreverence... More >>

• "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel": Retirees Find Solace in India

  published May 2, 2012

  The British have practically cornered the multiplex's senior demo (think Waking Ned Devine and Calendar Girls) and look to be... More >>

• Delayed Reaction

  published May 2, 2012

  The Day He Arrives, the prolific Hong Sang-soo's 12th film, begins with Sungjoon (Yu Jun-sang), a former film director now retired... More >>

• "The Pirates! Band of Misfits": An Animated Pleasure Cruise

  published April 25, 2012

  The year is 1837. A newly crowned Queen Victoria, voiced by Imelda Staunton and animated in clay as a shrewish little turnip of a woman,... More >>

• "Detention": Former Music Video Director Butchers Slasher Comedy

  published April 11, 2012

  Horror-comedy Detention combines the bravura mashup showmanship and Wikipedic '90s pop-culture savvy of a Girl Talk album with the... More >>

• "Lockout": Dreary Rescue Mission Bizarrely Set in Future

  published April 11, 2012

  The 56th president of the U.S.A.'s do-gooder daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace), is on a fact-finding trip to SuperMax Prison Planet MS: One... More >>

• "The Turin Horse": Hungarian Slow Cinema Illustrates Futility

  published April 11, 2012

  In the first image of The Turin Horse, a coachman with the face of a Biblical patriarch (Janos Derzsi) drives his horse into the teeth... More >>

• "The Three Stooges: The Movie": Classic Schtick, Resurrected

  published April 11, 2012

  For Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the low-comic connoisseurs whose brand name-establishing debut was 1994's Dumb and Dumber, this antic,... More >>

• "Goon": Brute on the Ice Is Good Guy at Heart

  published April 4, 2012

  In this comedy, Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a polite Jewish boy from fictional Orangetown, Mass. Doug is a bouncer, but his... More >>

• "Mirror Mirror": Campy Retelling Leaves Room for Tale's Beauty

  published April 4, 2012

  The fairy-tale movie is trending, with promise of all sorts of bandwagoning rubbish to come, but Mirror Mirror, one of 2012's two... More >>

• "American Reunion": Familiar Faces and Jokes Aren't the Worst

  published April 4, 2012

  This latest episode in the ongoing American Pie saga, handled by the Harold & Kumar writer-director team of Jon Hurwitz and... More >>

• "Titanic 3D": CGI Spectacle Doesn't Age Gracefully

  published April 4, 2012

  A historical romance with a then-unheard-of price tag, James Cameron's 1997 Titanic was the nearest thing to a Gone with the... More >>

• "The Deep Blue Sea": Lovers Try to Stay Above Water

  published March 28, 2012

  The Deep Blue Sea, the first fiction feature in a dozen years from the visionary British director Terence Davies, is a film about love... More >>

• "The Salt of Life": Aging Romans Attempt to Seize the Day

  published March 28, 2012

  As in his directorial debut, Mid-August Lunch, Gianni Di Gregorio stars in this quiet comedy, this time as Giovanni, a man in his early... More >>

• Romance Triangulated

  published March 28, 2012

  The Deep Blue Sea, the first fiction feature in a dozen years from the visionary British director Terence Davies, is a film about... More >>

• "Casa de Mi Padre": Tastefully Parodies Spanish Telenovelas

  published March 14, 2012

  Rogue comic Will Ferrell recently turned up on an Old Milwaukee commercial exclusively for the Davenport, Iowa, local market; the obvious next... More >>

• "Apart": A Chaotic Amnesiac Romance

  published March 14, 2012

  Sensitive kids, Emily (Olesya Rulin) and Noah (Josh Danziger) grew up together in small-town Texas. They are bonded by a shared psychic curse,... More >>

• "Silent House": Terror Outshines Its Genre

  published March 7, 2012

  In Silent House, a college-age young woman, Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), is on break and helping her father (Adam Trese) and uncle (Eric... More >>

• "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax": Tediously Preaching Preservation

  published March 7, 2012

  A computer-animated 3-D tracing of Dr. Seuss's 1971 fable, The Lorax concerns a young resident of synthetic, plastic-coated suburb... More >>

• "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie": Apocalypse of the Id

  published February 29, 2012

  The Turin Horse not excepted, Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, a comedy, is the most startlingly apocalyptic film of the... More >>