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Review: Family Feuds and Plenty of Punchlines in ‘Conversations with Mother’
Conversations with Mother, a new off-Broadway play by Matthew Lombardo at Theatre 555 on 42nd Street, is an entertaining, often touching two-hander about a combative relationship between a troubled...
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‘The Penguin Lessons’ Is a Waddling Delight
Here’s an unexpected charmer, a true story based on a popular autobiographical memoir about a man and a penguin, with a lightness of tone that doesn’t overdo the whimsy. The excellent Steve Coogan...
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Clooney Lights Up Broadway, but ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Flickers in the...
Broadway has suddenly exploded with passion, intelligence and integrity. It’s been 20 years since Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney’s sensational procedural on political corruption in...
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‘Sondheim’s Old Friends’ Is a Love Letter in Two Acts—One Whispered, One Roared
Since the death, at 91, of historic songwriting genius Stephen Sondheim, dozens of concerts, cabaret shows, television specials and Broadway “revues” have honored his memory and celebrated the...
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‘A Nice Indian Boy’ Trades Tropes for Truth
How refreshing it is when a small film with a big heart comes along unannounced and captures your affection. A surprise hit across America as well as a popular streaming link, A Nice Indian Boy is a...
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The Story of an Extraordinary Woman, Played by an Extraordinary Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve, at 81, might have gained a bit of the dreaded matronly demeanor that comes with maturity, but in my opinion, she’s more beautiful than ever. Her latest film, The President’s Wife,...
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‘Floyd Collins’ Review: Adam Guettel’s Best Work Still Lies Ahead
When Stephen Sondheim died, it was the end of a chapter, the farewell to an era, in theatre history. Who, everyone asked, will continue the tradition of the legendary Broadway musical? The gods (and...
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‘Just in Time’ Review: Jonathan Groff Ignites Broadway in a Dazzling Tribute...
Closing out the Broadway season, get ready for spectacular! That’s the word, in my opinion, that best describes Just in Time, the endlessly show-stopping new musical about the late...
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Review: John Krasinski Grapples With Gender Politics and Modern Masculinity...
“Broadway is Back!” echoed through the star-studded theater season that just ended—and the 78th Tony Awards that reflected the excitement, proof that the 40-carat names once filling Hollywood sound...
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Review: Jean Smart Can’t Save the Overwrought and Underwritten ‘Call Me Izzy’
As much as I like Jean Smart—for five seasons, I was glued to her sophisticated brand of humor in the TV sitcom Designing Women—I recoiled with disappointment while suffering through her misguided...
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‘Familiar Touch’ Is a Rare and Compassionate Work of Art
The remarkable and accomplished Kathleen Chalfant (Wit) strikes senior-citizen gold again in Familiar Touch. It’s another film about geriatric challenges faced by a woman at the end of a long,...
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‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ Is a Roaring, Recycled Spectacle With Nothing New...
Here they are again: 32 years after the dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park hit the ground running, stomping, screeching and munching everyone in sight like spare ribs,...
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‘Sovereign’ Is a Fire Alarm for America’s Most Dangerous Family Values
Sovereign is an ambitious, above-average action thriller with the extra bonus of being a thought-provoking civics lesson. It’s full of information about how we live now in a country where crime...
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‘Four Letters of Love’ Delivers a Long, Damp Script to Nowhere
In a wasteful summer of castoff sci-fi epics, stupid comedies and idiotic horror films, I actually had some hope for a love story from Ireland with a superb cast, but Four Letters of Love is a dismal...
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‘My Mother’s Wedding’ Rises Above the Seasonal Sludge
A competently conceived, professionally made movie about real people that holds your interest and makes you think about something besides vampires, zombies and idiot jokes is as hard to find in the...
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Elizabeth McGovern’s ‘AVA: The Secret Conversations’ Leaves the Best Stories...
I once spent a whole afternoon with the supremely scintillating, lushly gorgeous and endlessly fascinating Ava Gardner, interviewing her for a profile in Esquire. I never recovered. The result was...
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Jude Law Contributes Nothing But Full-Frontal Nudity in ‘Eden’
After a dismal debut one year ago at the Toronto International Film Festival and a universal refusal of commercial release by every major film company, Ron Howard finally decided to open his dreadful,...
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‘The Roses’ Is an Egregious Waste of Time and Talent
Remakes are odious, even when they’re nothing more than harmless television takeoffs on successful feature films, but The Roses is an especially egregious waste of time and talent because it takes...
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Emma Thompson Produces Her Own Career Nightmare In ‘Dead of Winter’
Like almost every other actor of renown in today’s diminished world of second-rate movies, Emma Thompson is forced to face the challenge of inventing her own projects to keep her film career alive....
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‘Truth & Treason’ Is a Sobering Drama About the Youngest Victim of the Third...
Where would the movies be without World War II? That’s not a frivolous question. Every year, the two infamous decades devoted to the cruelest and most heinous conflict in world history provide fresh...
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