Email Author Nick Pinkerton

2011 Stories by Nick Pinkerton

• Failing to Enshrine a Cleveland Folk Hero in Kill the Irishman

  published March 9, 2011

  With post-Goodfellas crime-movie tropes dyed for St. Patrick’s Day, this Ballad of Danny Greene attempts to enshrine the... More >>

• Gore Pioneer Herschell Gordon Lewis Gets His Due at Anthology

  published March 9, 2011

  “Y’know, an idea based on blood and lust—it could spread quickly in a civilization founded on superstition.” This from the... More >>

• One-Size-Fits-All '80s Nostalgia in Take Me Home Tonight

  published March 2, 2011

  Ink still wet on his MIT degree, Matt Franklin (Topher Grace) is back in hometown Los Angeles, waiting for his future to clarify itself while... More >>

• Happythankyoumoreplease: A Gently Worthless Script of Emotional Awakening

  published March 2, 2011

  Sam (Josh Radnor) lives a slightly slummy version of sitcom-character leisure, his flirtatious lip-pursing in East Village bars financed by his... More >>

• The Farrellys Give Us One From the Shart in Hall Pass

  published February 23, 2011

  Rick and Fred (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) are two domesticated husbands whose long marriages (to Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate, )... More >>

• Drive Angry: Hard-R Hellfire Imagery, Nic Cage in Black Denim

  published February 23, 2011

  Genre-unto-himself Nicolas Cage’s latest displays much the same tattoo-parlor hellfire imagery as Ghost Rider, but this is the... More >>

• 'Film Comment Selects': Where Klaus Kinski Dies for Your Sins

  published February 16, 2011

  Let it not be said that this session of “Film Comment Selects” lacks a consistency of vision. Past attendees of Lincoln... More >>

• Honoring the Voice Senior Film Critic's New Book, An Army of Phantoms, at BAM

  published February 16, 2011

  A new book by an obscure film writer with the suspicious handle “J. Hoberman”—a blacklist pseudonym?—occasions this... More >>

• The Golden Age of NYC Public-Access TV at MOMI

  published February 9, 2011

  Take heed, connoisseurs of the amateur—in both the “done for love” sense and the less-flattering one. Public-access television... More >>

• Justin Bieber: A Vague Presence in His Own Origin-Myth Doc

  published February 9, 2011

  The Bieber movie, a concert experience and origin-myth documentary, is not good—not that it needs to be. It is draggily paced and lacks... More >>

• Orgasm Inc.: Attacking Big Pharma With Little More Than Sex-Positive Platitudes

  published February 9, 2011

  Orgasm Inc. outlines the pharmaceutical-industry-sponsored classification, diagnosis, and marketing of FSD—“Female Sexual... More >>

• The Hell of the Arctic Circle in How I Ended This Summer

  published February 2, 2011

  The only men inhabiting miles of hostile landscape, Pavel and Sergei (Grigoriy Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis) live and work in a... More >>

• No Pea Soup or Sinister Ambiguity in The Rite

  published January 26, 2011

  The Rite is the latest of at least a dozen widely released American movies in half as many years with demonic possession a major... More >>

• Genuinely Aggrieved Melodrama Defines When We Leave

  published January 26, 2011

  With her young son in tow, Umay (Head-On’s Sibel Kekilli) walks out on her abusive husband and foregone conclusion of a life in... More >>

• Child Soldiery Becomes Abrasive Spectacle in Johnny Mad Dog

  published January 19, 2011

  An opening scene, in which a guerrilla fighter zips himself into a stolen wedding dress, establishes Johnny Mad Dog’s idea of child... More >>

• In Crime and Punishment and Petition, the Real People's Republic of China

  published January 12, 2011

  A multi-hyphenate artist of a decade’s standing, Zhao Liang—not to be confused with the world’s tallest man—has recently... More >>

• Stellan Skarsgard, Murderer on Parole, in A Somewhat Gentle Man

  published January 12, 2011

  A low-life comedy in registers of Norse pallor and reticence, A Somewhat Gentle Man begins with ex-thug Ulrik (Stellan Skarsgard)... More >>

• Ong Bak 3: The Martial Art of Contractual Obligation

  published January 12, 2011

  Returning to the feudal 15th-century Siamese setting of Ong Bak 2, this cutting-room-floor-sweepings-disguised-as-a-sequel picks up at... More >>

• Enter Season of the Witch's 14th Century for Dummies

  published January 5, 2011

  Season of the Witch begins in a Crusade taking place after the Crusades, in a 14th century For Dummies about as immersive and real as... More >>