Joe Wright

Considering its daunting production difficulties and director Joe Wright’s last-minute decision to totally change the look and meta-narrative of the film, there’s an almost storybook quality to the Oscar nominations haul by “Anna...

"Anna Karenina" opens Friday at the Capitol Theatre, and runs through Jan. 10. Based on the Leo Tolstoy novel, the film stars Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. ANNA KARENINA - 3 stars Joe Wright’s lovely adaptation of the...

Years ago when I was a student at Northwestern University, a handful of executives at America Online came to my class and explained that you, I and everyone we know would soon find ourselves pleasantly stranded on "information islands." We nodded,...

Like most alleged love-it-or-hate-it propositions, the new film version of "Anna Karenina" is neither. Rather, it's a half-success — a baldly conceptual response to the Leo Tolstoy novel, with a heavy theatrical framework placed around the narrative...

Here's a Day 2 recap from the Toronto International Film Festival. Everybody sees a different slate of movies each day here. Friday went this way: After the gamer-oriented slaughter of “Dredd 3D,” the fanciful and tricksy theatrics of director...

In "Argo," one of the leanest satisfactions of this year's massive Toronto International Film Festival, director and star Ben Affleck anchors a movie based on the true story about how Central Intelligence Agency operative Tony Mendez faked his way into...

Writer-director Andrea Arnold made "Red Road" and "Fish Tank," two frank and exceptional portraits of emotionally isolated young women hurtling, dangerously, into their futures. These character studies, set in Scotland and England, respectively,...

It's as if this year filmmakers remembered why God made movies. In a world of nonstop data where most of the static is gossip in 140 soul-destroying words or less, cinema has had a transcendent 12 months — a visual renaissance that has burned past...

Anna Karenina, this week's featured adaptation, is dividing the critics. Shallow, overblown eye candy? Faithful retelling of Tolstoy's tale of doomed lovers? You'll have to judge this one for yourself. But don't be surprised if you get an argument,...

*** (out of four) Writer-director Andrea Arnold’s last film, 2010’s “Fish Tank,” starred Michael Fassbender in one of many fantastic performances that all but guaranteed he'd be a huge star. One year later, Fassbender held his own...

Steven Spielberg is the premier film director of his generation. When he turns his creative spotlight on major historical events, he has no equal. In "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List," he brought forth the reality of World War II like no...

At the art house this weekend, moviegoers preferred modern-day Philadelphia to 19th-century Russia. The quirky dramedy "Silver Linings Playbook" and the period drama "Anna Karenina" both debuted in limited release this weekend, but the former film...