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Girl Talk in Union Square: Blanchard and Sorvino Overcome Stale Story to...
Blanchard and Sorvino in Union Square. The acting in Nancy Savoca’s Union Square is so strong it almost makes you forget what a total zero the rest of this undernourished little throwaway film really...
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Power Outage: Red Lights Short Circuits
Murphy in Red Lights. (Millennium Entertainment) Robert De Niro, whose acting career has been on hiatus for years, appears once more in mufti in the incomprehensible sci-fi bore Red Lights, playing the...
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Belle Isle Sees the Reunion of Reiner and Freeman for Another Magical Musing...
Freeman and Madsen in The Magic of Belle Isle. The Magic of Belle Isle is a warm, human, feel-good experience about bringing out the best in people, one that brings out Morgan Freeman’s best...
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Savages: From Hashish to Ashes, Cannabis Flick Can’t Stay Lit
Kitsch, Lively and Johnson in Savages. What I know about the internecine workings of Mexican drug cartels you could fill in an egg cup—and still have enough space left over for the egg. But this I...
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Puppy Love in Dogfight: Stage Remake of Nancy Savoca’s 1991 Film Finds New...
Mendez and Klena in Dogfight. With so much mediocre junk currently polluting both stage and screen, it’s encouraging to visit the modest but robustly entertaining new musical Dogfight at Second Stage....
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Overcoming All Odds: Ben Vereen at 54 Below
Vereen. (D Dipasupil/FilmMagic) Opening last month with brassy Patti LuPone and continuing now with the jazzy, undulating Terpsichore of Fosse-trained Ben Vereen, the new Broadway nightclub called...
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Batman goes Sploosh!: The Dark Knight Socks Us In The Gut As We Hunch Over In...
Bale in The Dark Knight Rises. “Get with the program!” scolds another letter from a brainwashed fan of the Batman-as-seen-through-the-pretentiousness-of-the-Christopher-Nolan trilogy, “You are a...
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30 Beats Is a Sexually Transmitted Disaster
Levin and Condola Rashad in 30 Beats. Sex never ceases to inspire. The controversial 1897 play Reichen, by the equally maligned and admired Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, is a tango of seduction...
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Just My Imagination: Ruby Sparks Would Be One Hell of a Girl If She Were...
Kazan and Dano in Ruby Sparks. If you’re an actor looking for work, it helps to have a girlfriend who is a writer. So Paul Dano, whose dour, limburger face is matched only by a charisma that is the...
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Trailer Park, Unhitched: With Killer Joe, Friedkin Continues His Slow Descent...
Hirsch and McConaughey in Killer Joe. Director William Friedkin has always been attracted to lurid movie material. From the gruesome, overcooked The Exorcist to the vile and unhinged Cruising, he...
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Bleat and Bland: Goats Is a Drug-Induced Trip with a Whole Lotta Hoopla Yet...
Phillips and Duchovny in Goats. Ellis, the precocious 15-year-old product of a broken marriage, played by appealing newcomer Graham Phillips, is the hero of Goats, an offbeat but nonetheless pedestrian...
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Hope Springs Sees Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones Rejuvenate Parched...
Lee Jones and Streep in Hope Springs. (Columbia Pictures) In an age of idiotic garbage overpopulated with alternate realities and toxic avengers in Halloween costumes, I cannot tell you how touching,...
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A Tribute In Tempo: Kilgore Jazzes Up Feinstein’s With Tasteful Turn On Judy...
Kilgore. The dog days of summer get an extra spark with the arrival of Portland, Oregon-based singer Rebecca Kilgore at Feinstein’s at Loew’s Regency. Last year she celebrated the musical side of...
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Dispatches from True North: Hyde Park on Hudson and Argo Are Hits; Cloud...
Affleck in Argo. In a time of cultural anemia and economic crisis, everything else in the arts may be slowing down, but at the Toronto International Film Festival (a k a TIFF), it’s full-speed ahead....
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The Master Loses Control of Its Flock: Underserved Cast Overacts in Paul...
Anderson and Phoenix. I never cease to be amused by the pile of unmitigated crap that gets shoveled off onto the moviegoing public by pretentious critics. They’re at it again with The Master, a load of...
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A Swing, and a Miss: Eastwood’s Late-Inning Rally Stifled by Lazy Gameplan as...
Adams and Eastwood in Trouble with the Curve. In the often illustrious career oeuvre of Clint Eastwood, Trouble with the Curve is a minor entry, a cinematic footnote. Worse yet, the screenplay and...
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Sweet Cherry, Blithe: Flaccid Script Can’t Find the Cinematic G-Spot
Hinshaw and Patel in About Cherry. Pornography is an accepted way of life today, and sex is only a click away. So a new movie about how an innocent teenager drifts into the porn industry may seem...
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Feinstein’s Fall Farewell: Marilyn and Michael’s Melodic Musings Kick Off the...
Feinstein and Mae. A badly needed four-week vacation followed by a busy week seeing five films a day at the Toronto International Film Festival has left me way behind in telling you about Michael...
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Famke Janssen Boosts Second-Rate Career with Blue-Chip Directorial Debut in...
Jovovich and List in Bringing Up Bobby. Sensitively acted, carefully written and directed with heartfelt compassion, Bringing Up Bobby is an engrossing little independent film made on an austere budget...
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From Concentrate: Julian Farino’s Saturated Direction Weighs Down...
Janney, Platt, Laurie and Shawkat in The Oranges. Leaden and cliché-riddled, The Oranges is, for starters, not about the four neighboring townships in New Jersey. There are no emerald green lawns in...
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