Email Author Karina Longworth

Awards

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club

  Film reviews

• 2011 - Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club, published February 5, 2010

  "Sundance's Rebel Yell"

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2011 Stories by Karina Longworth

• Hugo is Scorsese's personal statement disguised as a sellout

  published November 24, 2011

  Martin Scorsese's first foray into big-budget family filmmaking — as well as his inaugural effort in 3-D — Hugo is a... More >>

• Footloose remake comes alive when teens are fulfilling the grownups' worst fears

  published October 13, 2011

  In hindsight, the 1984 hit Footloose — starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Herbert Ross — along with its... More >>

• The Ides of March is haunted by the crash of Obamamania

  published October 6, 2011

  A procedural on the political manipulation of medium and message, George Clooney's fourth directorial effort is bookended with scenes of... More >>

• Contagion reminds us it can happen here

  published September 8, 2011

  Currently the fifth-to-last film on Steven Soderbergh's ever-expanding pre-retirement slate, Contagion opens on day two of a... More >>

• Littlerock tells the story of a college road trip gone awry

  published September 1, 2011

  The sleeper hit of the 2010 film-festival and indie-awards circuit, Mike Ott's moody micro-budget Littlerock patiently observes... More >>

• Our Idiot Brother teaches wayward white folks to be better people

  published August 25, 2011

  In Jesse Peretz's Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, a kind of upstate New York version of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski —... More >>

• One Day doesn't offer much in the way of guilty pleasures

  published August 18, 2011

  Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by David Nicholls and based on his novel, One Day stars Anne... More >>

• The Help is full of powerful villains and disenfranchised heroes

  published August 11, 2011

  More than just the Hollywood It Girl of the moment, Emma Stone is a real actress, and in The Help, she gets an ostentatious,... More >>

• Alternating eras frame an evolving friendship in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

  published August 4, 2011

  Nina (Li Bingbing) is a Shanghai career girl who drops plans to move to New York when she learns that her estranged bestie, Sophie (Gianna... More >>

• Another Earth is ostensibly a film about second chances

  published August 4, 2011

  There may be nothing as Old Hollywood as the narrative about a pretty girl summoning up a dose of pluck to triumph over adversity. And yet Brit... More >>

• Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds switch bodies and talk shit in The Change-Up

  published August 4, 2011

  A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard issue... More >>

• Crazy, Stupid, Love isn't quite crazy enough

  published July 28, 2011

  In the first scene of Crazy, Stupid, Love., Emily (Julianne Moore) tells Cal (Steve Carell), her high-school sweetheart and husband of... More >>

• Captain America leaves out the history, focuses on the franchise

  published July 21, 2011

  Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in 1941, Captain America was among the first American comic books intended as an... More >>

• Horrible Bosses plays with the theme of emasculation, in all its extremes

  published July 7, 2011

  There's a scene in Horrible Bosses in which Jennifer Aniston, playing a dentist who habitually sexually harasses her weakling... More >>

• Bad Teacher reminds us that change is desperately needed in Hollywood

  published June 23, 2011

  From Tad Friend's New Yorker profile of Anna Faris to the glass-ceiling-shattering pressure assigned to last month's Bridesmaids,... More >>

• L'amour Fou documents Yves Saint-Laurent's life of contradictions

  published June 9, 2011

  L'amour Fou opens with unbroken footage from designer Yves Saint-Laurent's 2002 speech announcing his retirement from fashion... More >>

• Terrence Malick's haunting Tree of Life will give viewers a lot to think about

  published June 9, 2011

  Including glimpses of Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, the rings of Saturn and a roadside Texas BBQ, Terrence Malick's The Tree of... More >>

• Owen Wilson plays a "Woody Allen type" in Midnight in Paris

  published June 2, 2011

  A nebbishy screenwriter who longs to publish a novel, Gil (Owen Wilson) is tentatively working on a book set in a nostalgia shop — much... More >>

• Bridesmaids has been "fixed" by and for dudes

  published May 12, 2011

  Bridesmaids is a high-profile test case. Directed by Paul Feig (a sitcom journeyman most lovingly known as the creator of... More >>

• Rubber documents one tire's bloody journey

  published April 28, 2011

  Written and directed by Quentin Dupieux, Rubber follows the exploits of a tire (listed in the credits as "Robert") that figures... More >>

• Potiche is a surprisingly cogent feminist parable

  published April 14, 2011

  The opening title card of François Ozon's 1977-set Potiche seems to take design inspiration from the exploitation films of... More >>

• The latest Jane Eyre is an intimate, thoughtful epic

  published March 10, 2011

  If Jane Eyre is not the greatest of the Great Books with a permanent position on required-reading lists, it may be the most... More >>

• The Adjustment Bureau works for the good of humanity

  published March 3, 2011

  In The Adjustment Bureau, screenwriter George Nolfi's directorial debut (an extremely loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1954... More >>

• Oscars 2011: The Fighter shows that the Academy establishment is changing

  published February 24, 2011

  Paramount, the distributor of David O. Russell's The Fighter, celebrated its Best Director Oscar nomination by placing a "For Your... More >>

• No Strings Attached is a realistic take on young love

  published January 20, 2011

  Ivan Reitman, master of the high-concept, big-budget Hollywood comedy (Ghostbusters, Dave), would seem an unlikely candidate to... More >>