Email Author Mark Holcomb

2011 Stories by Mark Holcomb

• Paul Goodman Changed My Life Review

  published December 1, 2011

  As bluntly humanist and free-ranging as its subject, this brisk take on the life of poet, sociologist, educator, psychologist, and general... More >>

• Elite Squad: The Enemy Within Review

  published November 17, 2011

  Packing an entire season's worth of The Wire's dirty cops, self-serving politicians, serpentine plotting, and gruesome, wasteful... More >>

• Bombay Beach Review

  published October 20, 2011

  Documentary-fiction hybrids are tough to pull off, and this one stumbles hard over the fiction part. The good news is that Bombay... More >>

• The Woman Review

  published October 13, 2011

  Pretentious muddle trumps splattery satire in this high-minded indie button-pusher, which is only fleetingly as transgressive as its infamous... More >>

• A Bird of the Air Review

  published October 6, 2011

  A benign boilerplate indie character study in which quirky and cute stand in for thorny and troubled, A Bird of the Air, based on the... More >>

• Blackthorn Review

  published October 6, 2011

  Riffing on how outlaw Butch Cassidy's life might have gone had he survived in South America, this modest oater should tickle western fans. (I... More >>

• Bunraku Review

  published September 29, 2011

  A manic mishmash of tropes from video games, puppet theater, and comic books that unabashedly references Kurosawa, Tarantino, and Shaw... More >>

• Restless Review

  published September 15, 2011

  Too morbid to be a crowd-pleaser à la Good Will Hunting but nowhere near as confrontationally inscrutable as Gerry,... More >>

• Conan the Barbarian Review

  published August 18, 2011

  A cinematic reboot for the patron saint of 98-pound weaklings, Conan the Barbarian is both truer to the vision if its character's... More >>

• Autoerotic Review

  published August 11, 2011

  Good sex comedies know that there's nothing funnier than the seriousness people attach to fucking. Autoerotic, Joe Swanberg and Adam... More >>

• Attack the Block Review

  published July 28, 2011

  The smartest, funniest cheap monster-movie import this side of June's Trollhunter, Attack the Block is a near-perfectly balanced... More >>

• Buck Review

  published June 23, 2011

  The documentary Audience Award winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Buck follows itinerant horse trainer Buck Brannaman as he... More >>

• Morgan Spurlock's The Greatest Movie Ever Sold Reviewed

  published April 21, 2011

  As agreeable as it is insidious, Morgan Spurlock's latest exposé of corporate control via immersive humiliation is his best, most formally... More >>

• Incendies

  published April 21, 2011

  INCENDIES This latest blast of unwavering miserablism from Denis Villeneuve, Oscar-nominated and everything, reaches for... More >>

• Putty Hill: The Cold Comforts of Matt Porterfield's Docu-Fiction Hybrid

  published April 7, 2011

  Sharing the narrative opacity and marginal milieu of its 2006 predecessor, Hamilton, this assured feature-length follow-up from Matt... More >>

• Elephant in the Living Room

  published March 31, 2011

  ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM Love is messy, unfathomable and occasionally lethal, as this low-budget, benignly prosaic... More >>

• Bill Cunningham New York

  published March 24, 2011

  GO  BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK No passion for fashion is required to enjoy this absorbing portrait of legendary New... More >>

• Desert Flower

  published March 17, 2011

  DESERT FLOWER Combining a harrowingly frank account of childhood genital mutilation with '80s-style goofball humor, this... More >>

• The Lincoln Lawyer

  published March 17, 2011

  THE LINCOLN LAWYER As devoid of spontaneity as a DA's defense strategy, this adaptation of fiction machine Michael Connelly's... More >>

• Monogamy

  published March 17, 2011

  MONOGAMY The romanticized commitment-phobia that keeps Judd Apatow in gilt-fixtured man caves is brought down to earth (or... More >>

• Black Death

  published March 10, 2011

  GO  BLACK DEATH Nothing heralds spring like a plague-and-pestilence movie, and Black Death has the suppuration and body... More >>

• Elektra Luxx

  published March 10, 2011

  ELEKTRA LUXX Still on track to be the George Cukor of the stroke-movie set, Sebastian Gutierrez follows up 2009's Women in... More >>

• The Human Resources Manager

  published March 10, 2011

  GO  THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER Tender irony and dark humor abound in Israeli director Eran Riklis' latest account of... More >>

• The Grace Card

  published February 24, 2011

  THE GRACE CARD Nowhere near as adroit as its mush-brained title might have you believe, this Christian-themed domestic... More >>