Alex Cross: Freed from Madea, Tyler Perry Is Still No Morgan Freeman
The gravitas Freeman brought to James Patterson’s sadistically inclined crime stories more than a decade ago is sorely missed in director Rob Cohen’s attempt to reboot the series
Accidentally on Purpose: The True Tale of a Happy Single Mother is available for nearly nothing at various online bookstores and from boxes in Pols' barn.
Mary Pols
Mary Pols has been reviewing film and occasionally books for TIME since 2009. She has degrees from Duke University, where she studied art history, and the University of California Berkeley’s School of Journalism. Before joining TIME, she worked as a reporter and a movie critic for several California newspapers. She wrote a memoir about parenthood that was turned into a television comedy (not Weeds).
Articles from Contributor
Oscar-worthy: Actor John Hawkes Searches for Love in The Sessions
After his first Oscar nomination in 2011, Hawkes skipped the fortune and used his new fame to make a low budget movie about a polio survivor who hires a sex surrogate to deflower him. TIME talks to the actor about his method, …
Smashed‘s Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Scream Queen to Oscar Contender
The movie is small, but the part, playing an alcoholic hipster trying to get sober, was big and special. Winstead, best known for movies like Final Destination 3 and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, went for it.
Just How Scary Is Sinister?
Scary, but you’ll still sleep… Ethan Hawke plays a true crime writer who gets a little too close to his latest project—the investigation of a gruesome multiple murder
The Bold, the Beautiful and Yes, Occasionally Boring New Wuthering Heights
Director Andrea Arnolds uses novice actors and natural settings in an admirably realist take on Emily Brontë’s only novel. Bonus: You may pick up some tricks on how to catch and kill rabbits.
Is Sister Switzerland’s Best Chance at an Oscar? Yes.
A 12 year-old supports himself and his sister by stealing skis high on a Swiss mountaintop. His racket is clever, his backstory heartbreaking. Catch this thief.
The Oranges: A Sunshiny Take on Infidelity
Leighton Meester plays the 24 year-old who falls in love with her dad’s married best friend (Hugh Laurie). It’s all much less traumatic than it sounds.
Won’t Back Down: Maggie Gyllenhaal Burns to Be Erin Brockovich
Maggie Gyllenhaal gives an intense and over-the-top, I-want-my-Oscar performance as a fictional school reformer
Travel Advisory for Hotel Transylvania: Avoid this Establishment
The world’s monsters are all scared of humans, so they hide out at a hotel run by Count Dracula (Adam Sandler). Let’s call it Motel Monsters, Inc.
Pitch Perfect: Back to School Isn’t Usually This Much Fun
In this raunchy comedy set in the world of competitive collegiate a cappella (yeah, that’s a thing), Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and Elizabeth Banks hit all the right notes
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel Celebrates the Reign of the Empress of Fashion
If there’s one thing we learned from this feast-for-the-eyes documentary, made by Vreeland’s granddaughter-in-law, it’s that the mind has to race to keep up with the inimitable Vogue editor
Richard Gere Is Ruthless and Ruthlessly Good in Arbitrage
First-time feature film director Nicholas Jarecki stacks this financial thriller with twists, turns and strong performances
Liberal Arts: How I Met the Inappropriately Young College Student
Sitcom star Josh Radnor—Ted from ‘How I Met Your Mother’—makes a film about a mid-30s admissions officer who falls for a free spirited college student (Elizabeth Olsen)
