Email Author J. Hoberman

Awards

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published October 13, 2009

  "Let the Mild Rumpus Start!"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 29, 2009

  "Robert Frank's Real America"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published February 4, 2009

  "Why Hard Times Won't Mean Good Times"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 12, 2008

  "Deep Freeze"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 18, 2008

  "What We Learned About the Election in this Summer's Movies"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published January 24, 2008

  "Kill One for the Gipper"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 5, 2006

  "Mel Gibson is Responsible for All the Wars in the World"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 16, 2006

  "The New Disaster Movie"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published March 14, 2006

  "Anarchy in the UK"

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2010 Stories by J. Hoberman

• J. Hoberman's top ten of 2010...and beyond

  published December 30, 2010

  Many of my favorite films of the year are still awaiting wider release, so although this top-ten list wraps up my 2010, it can also serve as a... More >>

• As 'Casino' Jack Abramoff, Kevin Spacey shows his patently smooth insincerity

  published December 23, 2010

  The late George Hickenlooper's Casino Jack is an improbably blithe cautionary tale, recounting the rise and fall of D.C.... More >>

• In the new True Grit, Jeff Bridges makes a better Rooster than John Wayne

  published December 23, 2010

  Boldly reanimating the comic Western that secured John Wayne his Oscar 41 years ago, the Coen Brothers' True Grit is... More >>

• The King's Speech humanizes and pokes fun at the House of Windsor

  published December 23, 2010

  A picnic for Anglophiles, not to mention a prospective Oscar bonanza for the brothers Weinstein, The King's Speech is a... More >>

• Tron: Legacy delights the eye, baffles the brain

  published December 16, 2010

  Jeff Bridges is God and, as image-captured from the original 1982 Tron, also the devil in Disney's mega-million-dollar reboot,... More >>

• Black Swan is all about penetration, blood and psychosis

  published December 9, 2010

  A near-irresistible exercise in bravura absurdity, Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan deserves to become a minor classic of... More >>

• Gemma Arterton turns a town upside down in Tamara Drewe

  published November 18, 2010

  Comely, independent, willful young lass returns to collect family inheritance in rural England, drives the local men wild, makes several... More >>

• James Franco nails Ginsberg in Howl

  published October 28, 2010

  As suggested by its title, Allen Ginsberg's game-changing poem "Howl" is essentially performative — and so is Howl, the... More >>

• Inside Job is a stupefying account of the 2008 global economic meltdown

  published October 28, 2010

  Inside Job, Charles Ferguson's followup to his Iraq War gut-twister No End in Sight, is a documentary that inspires less... More >>

• Who needs friends? Facebook's tumultuous infancy is exposed in The Social Network

  published September 30, 2010

  The Social Network is a wonderful title, at once Olympian in its detachment and self-descriptive in its buzz. Everyone will opine... More >>

• Never Let Me Go is melancholy but not without transgressive power

  published September 23, 2010

  Published five years ago, Kazuo Ishiguro's massively praised Never Let Me Go is set in an alternate universe where life has been... More >>

• Winnebago Man sets out to find the YouTube star known as "The Angriest Man in the World"

  published September 16, 2010

  Opening with a deeply sincere "I don't give a fuck!" Austin filmmaker Ben Steinbauer's investigative doc Winnebago Man sets out... More >>

• Lebanon is this year's most impressive first feature

  published September 9, 2010

  Lebanon, written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is not just the year's most impressive first feature, but also the strongest new... More >>

• Not so happy: Life During Wartime is full of apologies, sincere and otherwise

  published August 26, 2010

  Elegant opening credits, written as if calligraphy on a wedding invitation, yield to a couple in blunt close-up — unhappy, interracial,... More >>

• Wild Grass is an insufferable exercise

  published July 29, 2010

  Alain Resnais's Wild Grass has plenty of fans — it copped an award at Cannes in 2009 — but I don't see what they see.... More >>

• Everyone Else is more fascinating than enjoyable

  published July 22, 2010

  An exercise in voyeurism, Maren Ade's provocatively titled, superbly performed, emotionally graphic Everyone Else is more... More >>

• The Kids Are All Right

  published July 15, 2010

  Serious comedy, powered by an enthusiastic cast and full of good-natured innuendo, Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right gives... More >>

• The Killer Inside Me's tormented self gets simplified for the screen

  published July 8, 2010

  Implicit in its title, the premise of The Killer Inside Me — directed by Michael Winterbottom from Jim Thompson's 1952... More >>

• Sure, she's a piece of work. But there's got to be more to Joan Rivers.

  published June 17, 2010

  Opening with a close-up of the crow's feet around its subject's eyes and expanding to reveal her Botox-frozen upper lip, the... More >>

• Bong Joon-ho lets his freak flag fly

  published April 15, 2010

  Mother, Bong Joon-ho's followup to his killer killer-tadpole allegory The Host, is a more subtle yet no less visceral... More >>

• Flick Pick

  published April 15, 2010

  Mother, Bong Joon-ho's followup to his killer killer-tadpole allegory The Host, is a more subtle yet no less visceral... More >>

• Los Angeles plays itself in Greenberg

  published March 25, 2010

  Sad, funny, and acutely self-conscious, Noah Baumbach's new movie is the sort of mordant character study that people imagine were common in the... More >>

• Matt Damon and Green Zone confirm the Big Lie, Hollywood style

  published March 11, 2010

  Better late than never — a bang-bang pulse-pounder predicated on the Bush administration's deliberate fabrication of WMDs in Iraq. Paul... More >>

• Police, Adjective

  published February 11, 2010

  Detective stories imply that mysteries can be solved, or at least rationally explained. Even the most debased example confirms a universe in... More >>

• A Town Called Panic

  published January 28, 2010

  Animals and people are all jumbled up in the hyperactive Belgian puppet animation that is A Town Called Panic — most... More >>