Ever wanted a soup-to-nuts list of all the crime films coming out next year? Lord knows I’ve lost sleep over the lack of one. Well, you’re in luck. We’ve stepped up to the plate and produced this shamelessly long list of The 20 Most Anticipated Crime Films of 2012.

The following lists are for the increasingly ballyhooed network television midseason, which has somehow become a part of the average American’s everyday lexicon. Criminal Complex-style, of course.  So you know, guns and feds and spies and all that…

It struck me as I was watching J. Edgar that as much as I enjoy James Ellroy’s work and how funny I find his depiction of Hoover in his Blood’s a Rover, it actually is a really cartoony version of the guy.  Ellroy kinda does that a lot, and that’s fine, as not only do I like cartoons… Continue reading J. EDGAR Is Leo’s Show, All The Way

There are top-rated crime shows every season these days, with something illegal to appeal to anybody somewhere on the airwaves. Whether it’s the tone, the characters or the narrative, the diverse range of crime storytelling hits chords with all kinds of viewing markets. It’s our contention that some of these chords must intertwine, and make… Continue reading 5 TV Crime Show Crossovers That Must Happen

I did not go into this newest version of The Three Musketeers with high expectations.  In point of fact, I expected the film to be kind of bad.  I find myself forced to confess a reluctant admiration for just how bad it turned out to be. What I expected was a historically inaccurate melodrama, with… Continue reading THE THREE MUSKETEERS Is a Hot, Delicious Mess | review

I’m a natural skeptic.  Not an unusual or profound thing for my generation, but that’s what I am.  In growing older, I find my tastes funneling down into increasingly ordered grooves from which I rarely stray.

In crime TV, there’s another major push underway from NBC, Prime Suspect, that is bringing A-list talent to bear in an effort to seize some of those sweet, sweet CBS crime junky ratings. In Prime Suspect, Maria Bello, seen in such edgy theater releases as A History of Violence, plays a tough NYPD cop that… Continue reading 5 Ways the US PRIME SUSPECT Is Better Than the UK

There are myriad reasons why people become artists—creative drive, fame/notoriety, money.  Actually, that’s about it.  But one reason not discussed all that often is simple boredom.  The non-creative life can be a real drag, working a regular job, marrying a regular spouse in order to birth regular kids.  Artistic endeavors, especially in this modern western… Continue reading Crime Imitates Life: Danny Ocean Gets More Chicks than Terry Benedict

It’s a role of intense emotional shifts frequently conveyed internally. It’s a portrayal of severe emotional and psychological damage created with such subtlety and intelligence it’s hard to imagine any healthy twenty-two year old pulling it off, let alone one related to seemingly vapid child star/fashion designer twins. Yet, here we are.  I have a… Continue reading Whatever Her Name Is, She’s Brilliant: The MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE | Review

Despite his most recent snag with the law, Tom Sizemore has turned over a new leaf, one not grown from the coca plant.  His guest role this season on CBS’s Hawaii Five-O as straight-laced IAB cop, Captain Vince Fryer, fits nicely with Sizemore’s new-found path of cleanliness and sobriety.  We here at Criminal Complex truly hope this… Continue reading What Are the Odds Tom Sizemore Is Gonna Get Killed on Hawaii Five-O?

The Mortician is almost impossible to classify.  I saw it described as “post-apocalyptic,” but it’s not really SF; a fair number of people in line with me for the screening thought it was horror because the main character is a mortician, but it’s not horror; technically I guess it’s a drama, but it’s not what… Continue reading The Mortician | New Orleans Film Fest movie review

96 Minutes is a festival gem.  With the films screening in competition, you never really walk in sure of what you’ll get; like Forest Gump’s box of chocolate, sometimes the film’s a truffle and other times it’s a coconut macaroon (and you hate coconut).  I went into 96 Minutes almost blind—I read the blurb but… Continue reading 96 MINUTES | movie review via New Orleans Film Festival

The Thing (2011) both exceeded my expectations and proved a massive disappointment, and while that statement may seem paradoxical it is nonetheless true. 

Sam “Ace” Rothstein is the number one gambler in the country.  He is so good at betting on sporting events that by merely betting on a team, he increases the odds for that team on a national scale.  A talent like this is not inherent; Ace may be something of a natural at gambling, but… Continue reading Crime Imitates Life: CASINO’s Ace Rothstein Is an Artist of Chance

South by Southwest favorite Bellflower finally made it to New Orleans this week. The movie’s description placed it well inside my sweet zone for films, so I made a point to go to one of its two screenings.  Overall I liked the film.  It had some beautiful and creative filming, the acting was solid—rare in… Continue reading ‘Bellflower’ is Long on Art, Short on Ultra-violence

Get Low is one of those movies that really should have been better than it is.  The film has an interesting premise and the cast to pull that premise off, and yet somehow it simply falls flat.  I would like to know the intent behind the film, because intention is the difference between a failure… Continue reading ‘Get Low’ Should Have Been Better | review

Lo was a movie I went into with no expectations. The description said it was about a man who summons a demon to find his girlfriend, who has been dragged to hell.  That was enough for me.

Drive just might be my favorite movie of 2011.  Certainly it is my favorite movie of the year so far.  I loved it.  Hands down.  It is one of those rare movies that I wouldn’t change a thing about, and I say that after going in with high hopes based on Valhalla Rising(director Refn’s previous… Continue reading Ryan Gosling Steers DRIVE Past Good to Awesome

It’s…over?  After 10 years, eight films, and 1179 minutes (not to mention the books!), the Harry Potter series has finally come to its end.  To be honest, I feel a lingering disbelief, an unwillingness to recognize that after such a span—literally years of anticipation—the last credits have finally rolled. 

The Autobots aren’t here for the good of humanity; they’re here for the good of America. We catch up with them attacking a nuclear weapons facility in an unknown Middle Eastern country (probably Iran). Luckily, the Transformers’ political ideology closely mirrors our own, with Optimus Prime regularly spouting off declarations of freedom. Absurdities aside (and… Continue reading Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon – movie review

The Black Death is about what you think it is.  Set near the beginning of the era of the bubonic plague, it follows a young monk out of his abbey while he serves as guide for a group of knights on an errand from their bishop:  to find a remote village said to be free… Continue reading The Black Death Tries Avoiding the Plague Like Cliches

Fast Five is great, superb summer entertainment, and a fitting commemoration for the 10th anniversary of the original The Fast and the Furious.  Justin Lin has fashioned himself into a groundbreaking action director in the vein of Michael Bay, and delivers one of the most original action films in recent memory.  Considering the Fast and Furious… Continue reading Fast Five Quits Reality, Goes Full Spectacle – Review

Like Nietzsche with God, last fall Disney declared that the fairy tale was dead.  In this case, that is, Disney would no longer be making animated features out of the old stories. As a child of the golden years of Disney fairy tales in the early 90’s, I found this news unutterably depressing.  Forget that… Continue reading Tangled and the Death of the Disney Fairy Tale

“The count’s frozen face was petrified and ashen and the blood still poured down the parallel cuts.  His eyes bulged wide, full of horror and pain.  It was glorious.  If you like that kind of thing.” –William Goldman, The Princess Bride If you like that kind of thing, then I Saw the Devil really might… Continue reading I Saw the Devil: Feel Good Movie of the Year – review

I Sell the Dead is proof that not every IFC production is golden. It’s from a couple years ago now—2008, I think—and showed up on my Netflix recommendations page and sounded interesting enough to try. And that was the movie’s entire problem: it sounded interesting, but somehow wasn’t. It’s about a pair of grave robbers… Continue reading I Sell the Dead | movie review

Mozart originally ended his opera Don Giovanni with Don Giovanni descending into Hell, his soul claimed by the devil, and later added a final ensemble to bring the performance away from the bleakness of that end, which was considered too dark. For me, the opera is stronger with the final ensemble omitted, because it allows… Continue reading Source Code | movie review

Matthew McConaughey is one of those actors that you just love even though they don’t really do that many good movies.  He’s done a handful over the years, maybe three or four, and he’s a man who makes a lot of movies.  Thus I’ve joked for years that, with the amount of roles he takes,… Continue reading The Lincoln Lawyer – review

When a movie could have been good, but wasn’t, it becomes an even worse movie experience than if there had been no expectation, no potential, for anything better.  So it was with The Adjustment Bureau.  This movie was like 30 Days of Night:  it had everything going for it—unique premise, great cast, decent if not… Continue reading Adjusting the Adjustment Bureau

Animal Kingdom is not a movie about the jungle but simply the law of the jungle: it’s kill or be killed, and only the strong survive. As the poster tagline claims, it is a crime story, about a crime family–the Cody’s–and what happens when their anchor, their leader, is killed. The main character is teenager… Continue reading Animal Kingdom | movie review

There’s an old Chinese curse that a lot of hacky writers use to set up the premises of their articles, and it is as follows: May you live in interesting times.  And for stand-up comedy, these are very interesting times, indeed. This is not to say that stand-up is cursed.  At least, it isn’t any… Continue reading A Glorious Waste of Time: Jordan Brady’s I Am Comic

Like Dante, I wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. The focus of all the attention was familiar: small waves of television and movie stars, wide-smiling studio execs, nervous-looking producers and show-runners, all surrounded by the usual mad gaggle of protectors, buffers, yes-men and desperate-eyed hangers-ons. Cameras flashed, smilers smiled, and the air was… Continue reading Too Cool (Or, how a moron ended up at the TCA’s)

Blue Valentine screened here at the NO Film Fest the same week Welcome to the Rileys, Black Swan, and 127 Hours did.  I did not end up seeing it due to a prior engagement the night it screened, and so I watched the controversy about its rating–should it be NC17 or R, and if the… Continue reading Blue Valentine | movie review

The King’s Speech is a problematic movie for me.  On the one hand, it’s a really great underdog story, the acting jobs were fabulous, and it’s a movie about hope in a time of darkness…but on the other hand is the history buff I know pointing out that he was hardly the only heroic figure… Continue reading The King’s Speech | movie review

I love them when they are dead I want some cold-blooded women lying in my bed I love you when you are dead – Batmobile, “Dead (I Want Them When They Are Dead)” At first you have to look closely to see her, but once you spot her, she’s hard to miss. In a field… Continue reading Dead Supermodels: The Photography Of Kaoru Izima | The Nail That Sticks Out

I almost didn’t go see this movie for three reasons:  it was getting panned by Rotten Tomatoes (somewhere in the 20 percent’s when I checked, which is just shy of worst movie of the year numbers); acting opposite my boy Vince Vaughn was not Jon Favreau as I had thought from a half-watched preview but… Continue reading The Dilemma | movie review

True Grit is the latest movie from the Coen brothers, and their best since No Country for Old Men.  It convinces me that they should stick to movies that are not comedic in structure but simply in tone; this is a revenge story layered with dark humor, but the characters and the situations are always,… Continue reading True Grit | movie review