Isaac's Film Reviews

A romantic comedy chock full of silver linings. Full, spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Rom-coms have gained quite the deadly reputation around Hollywood, and it’s easy to see why considering the constant deluge of pathetically generic genre entries. There’s no mistaking Silver Linings Playbook for anything but a romantic comedy, and yet strangely enough, it isn’t bad. Playbook is a refreshing breath of what romantic-comedies once were, and what they have the potential to be: amusing, heartfelt glimpses at the ups and downs of complicated relationships. Playbook focuses on Pat (Bradley Cooper), a man suffering from bi-polarity who’s fresh out of a mental hospital and has moved back to his hometown and into the house of his parents (Robert de Niro and Jacki Weaver). Pat is intent on winning back his ex-wife Nikki, and intends to do so by striking a deal with recovering-sex-addict, recently-widowed Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). The ensuing relationship between Pat and Tiffa...

From humble beginnings Full spoiler-free review by Isaac Handelman Zero Dark Thirty is not a war movie. It’s definitely not an action movie. It’s a military  thriller for about twenty minutes, and a well-written, tense political drama for an hour. That leaves about half the movie -- an hour and twenty-minutes if anyone’s counting -- to be something else. What, exactly? Well, the most accurate descriptor I can sum up would be a globe-trotting, talk-heavy bore.  Now, I relay this not to be unnecessarily harsh, nor to criticize Zero Dark Thirty ’s lack of action when it’s not aiming to be action-heavy in the first place, but the fact of the matter is, a huge chunk of Zero Dark Thirty just isn’t very interesting. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for dialogue-heavy dramas, so long as they are well acted, dramatic, and sharply written. On one of these fronts, Zero Dark Thirty emerges victorious: Jessica Chastain’s lead performance isn’t going to win any Oscars (in fact, I’m so...

2013 is here, but before we move on to the new year it's nice to take one last look back at everything that 2012 had to offer. Huge blockbusters were sparser in 2012 than they have been in years past, but when the big movies hit, they hit hard. From summer tent-poles like The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man to autumn and winter hits like Skyfall and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey , 2012 didn't contain as many big movies as it did huge movies. Coinciding with these tent-pole releases were plenty of smaller films that may not have garnered anywhere near the commercial buzz of the years biggest blockbusters, but earned praise from critics and audiences nonetheless. This year, over four hundred and fifty films released in United States cinemas, and thousands more around the world. I reviewed twenty-six of them. This Best of 2012 article is not the definitive determination of the greatest film released in 2012. The films that I detail in this article are the ones I would ...