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The Monuments Men Is One Hell of a Monumental Motion Picture
Dimitri Leonidas, George Clooney, John Goodman, Bob Balaban and Matt Damon, from left, starin The Monuments Men. In the last three years of World War II, while Hitler was ravaging Europe, a small group...
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Adult World Is an Adolescent Abomination
Emma Roberts and John Cusack in Adult World. Incompetently directed by Scott Coffey and weakly written by Andrew Cochran, a rotten egg called Adult World is anything but. This is the kind of cheesy,...
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Star Light, Not Bright: Celestial-Themed Winter’s Tale Flickers Like a Dying...
Jessica Brown Findlay and Colin Farrell in Winter’s Tale. Movies get crazier and more incomprehensible every day, but you don’t know demented until you see Winter’s Tale. This metaphysical howl is such...
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Behind Closed Doors: In Secret Is All Costume and No Drama
Oscar Isaac and Elizabeth Olsen star in In Secret. When it premiered to tepid responses at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, In Secret was called Thérèse, which makes more sense, since...
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Crowd Pleaser: The Brilliant Elaine Stritch Lives for the Audience
Elaine Stritch is the subject of Chiemi Karasawa’s new documentary. Interviewing Elaine Stritch is like asking a hemophiliac for a pint of blood. “Everybody’s got a sack of rocks,” she says. Every now...
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They May Never Meet Again
Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale star in The Bridges of Madison County. (Photo by Joan Marcus) Hearts are broken in the Broadway musical version of The Bridges of Madison County, but the tears hardly...
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The Bag Man Is a Ponderous, Pointless and Pretentious Mess
Robert De Niro in The Bag Man. A loony combination tycoon-crime lord-book reader and closet intellectual named Dragna (Robert De Niro) knocks a girl’s teeth out with his fists for no reason, then pays...
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Chlorine Is as Topical as Today’s Wall Street Headlines
Kyra Sedgwick and Vincent D'Onofrio star in Chlorine. Chlorine begins with a teenage girl experiencing her first period during a swim meet in the bright blue water of the high school swimming pool. A...
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Two Maladjusted College Freshmen Team Up in HairBrained
Alex Wolff, left, and Brendan Fraser in HairBrained. This is the wobbly, wonky story of a 13-year-old wunderkind named Eli Pettifog who goes to a college in upstate New York. Eli is a genius. As played...
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Odd Thomas Is Comic Book Twaddle That Defies Analysis
Anton Yelchin is Odd Thomas. Say “hello,” if not “welcome,” to a new kind of action hero: a short-order cook in a New Mexico diner who made it through high school but has no interest in college, in...
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Eye Candy: Wes Anderson’s Latest Confection Is Nice to Look At
The Grand Budapest Hotel. The Grand Budapest Hotel is another giddy piece of period whimsy by Wes Anderson, the deluded director of such brainless fruit salads as The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling...
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My Old Flame: Annette Bening and Ed Harris Link Up in ‘The Face of Love’
Ed Harris and Annette Bening star in The Face of Love. Is love really lovelier, as the song goes, the second time around? In The Face of Love, an uneven but polished and emotionally compelling love...
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Ghost Story: Boringly Titled Haunted House Thriller Offers Boring Thrills
Haunt is as stupid as it looks. I was in the mood for a good haunted house thriller when I went to see Haunt. I should have rerun a DVD of The Uninvited. I’ve had bigger scares from the windows at FAO...
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The Secret of Her Success: You Cain’t Say ‘No’ to Shirley Jones
Till there was her: Shirley Jones returns to the supper club circuit. (Photo by Stephen Sorokoff) A warming thaw has arrived at the Café Carlyle just in time to melt the ice on the curb. It is called...
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Paris, Je T’Aime: An Aging Couple Sparkles in the City of Lights
im Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan on a romantic Parisian getaway in Le Week-End. Even senior citizens, if they’ve done any living at all, know the meaning of love on the rocks. In the British film Le...
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Jason Bateman Stars in His Directorial Debut, a Lewd Spelling Bee Adventure
Rohan Chand, left,and Jason Bateman in Bad Words. It’s good to see Jason Bateman in something offbeat and worthwhile, like Juno and Disconnect, instead of the stupid trash he’s usually attracted to,...
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Pharma Con: A Pill-Popping Pharmacist Gets Tangled Up In Crime
Olivia Wilde seduces Sam Rockwell in Better Living Through Chemistry. The motto of a droll but generic little black comedy called Better Living Through Chemistry is: “Don’t get high … on your supply.”...
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Francophobia: ‘Maladies’ Is a Sickening Display of Cinematic Ineptitude
James Franco in Maladies. Overrated, overexposed and overindulgent, James Franco is all over the place, like cow chips in the abandoned pasture of a derelict farm. With nine movies currently in release...
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Bad Cop: ‘McCanick’ Features Cory Monteith in His Last Film Role
David Morse as a worn-out Philadelphia cop named McCanick. The only reason to suffer through a grim wack job called McCanick is to see the late Cory Monteith in his last film role. Because of his...
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A Vibrant Catherine Deneuve Stars in Long and Winding Road-trip Flick
Catherine Deneuve in On My Way. Disappointingly tedious, On My Way is a contrived vehicle for Gallic icon Catherine Deneuve. At 70, she’s still the embodiment of placid ripeness we know and love, but...
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