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A Masterpiece of Carnage From South Korea’s Most Imaginative Filmmaker
Tilda Swinton, center, in Snowpiercer. How many times have you found yourself sitting through a movie, hating almost every minute of it, so appalled by the grotesque violence that you find a lot of it...
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In Begin Again, Keira Knightley Straps on a Guitar and Tries to Sing
Keira Knightley, left, in Begin Again. Originally titled Can a Song Save Your Life?, this elusive little music-infused rom-com with a forgettable pop-rock score performed largely (and unwisely) by the...
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Rom-com Send Up ‘They Came Together’ Is the Very Thing It Wants to Ridicule
Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler in They Came Together. Summer silliness continues at the speed of lightning with They Came Together, a ponderous spoof of movie rom-coms that plummets stupidity to a new low...
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Melissa McCarthy Gives ‘Tammy’ Her All, but It’s Nowhere Near Enough
Susan Sarandon, left, and Melissa McCarthy in Tammy. The good news is that Tammy is not a crappy remake of the 1957 Tammy movie with Debbie Reynolds that spawned three sequels and a TV comedy series....
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In ‘Land Ho!,’ a Pair of Kooky Old Men Share an Excellent Adventure in Iceland
Earl Lynn Nelson, left, and Paul Eenhoorn. From this year’s overcrowded but empty film festival circuit menu comes a rare treat—a modest little cookie called Land Ho! about two old geezers who take a...
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Run, Mona, Run: Aiysha Hart Stars in This Complicated Look at Honor Killings
Aiysha Hart in Honour. “Without honor, life is nothing.” So goes the phrase Pakistani Muslims in London live by. A note at the end of this dark, chilling but confusing thriller informs us that more...
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Do Us a Favor and Jump Already!
Aaron Paul in A Long Way Down. “Suicide is painless” was the theme song from M.A.S.H. It could very easily double for a new film called A Long Way Down that does everything but bring in Bozo the Clown...
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Cage in a Rage: A Belligerent Father Goes Vigilante in This ‘Taken’-Themed...
Nicolas cage in Rage. Nicolas Cage has made so many bad movies it’s hard to remember he was good enough to win an Oscar for the devastating Leaving Las Vegas. I don’t know if it’s a lack of taste and...
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Zach Braff Runs Over the Same Old Muddled Ground in ‘Wish I Was Here’
Zach Braff in Wish I Was Here. As good as he is singing, dancing and looking befuddled onstage in the Woody Allen musical Bullets Over Broadway, Zach Braff’s scruffy charm and klutzy style grow...
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The Boys Are Back in Town
Scott Haze in The Long Shrift. (Photo by Joan Marcus) At a time when plays with legitimate dramatic impact are at a shortage and genuine artistry is rare, you can expect just about anything in the...
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Renée Fleming Makes Her Acting Debut in ‘Living on Love’
Renée Fleming and Douglas Sills in Living on Love. (Photo by T Charles Erickson) For me, summer officially arrives when I follow the sandals, Polos and Liberty blouses to the rolling green foothills of...
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An Imperfect Spy: Philip Seymour Hoffman Stars in ‘A Most Wanted Man’
Willem Dafoe , left, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in A Most Wanted Man. It’s always fun to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman, even posthumously, acting all over the place, plunging headfirst into freaky...
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That Old Black Magic: Woody Allen’s 44th Film Is One of His Best
Emma Stone and Colin Firth in Magic in the Moonlight. Woody Allen’s on a hot roll. After conquering London, Barcelona, Paris and San Francisco in recent triumphs, the wizard of wit now heads for the...
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600 Feet Under: A Routine Mining Excursion Goes Terribly Wrong in ‘Beneath’
Mining is a dangerous vocation. The opening of Beneath prepares us for a film inspired by real facts—an actual 2013 coal mine collapse that trapped a crew of miners 600 feet below ground—sweating,...
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‘Calvary’ Is a Gimlet-Eyed Revelation of Both Catholic Dogma and Irish Life...
Brendan Gleeson stars as Father James in Calvary. In the gloomy, unsettling film Calvary, the worldly but good-hearted priest of a remote beach community on the wind-lashed coast of Ireland is doing...
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‘Louder Than Words’ Is a Feel-Good Film With an Infectious Sense of Inspiration
Olivia Steele-Falconer and David Duchovny in Louder Than Words. When the world lauds Americans for embodying the best qualities of humanity people can extend to each other in times of crisis and...
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High Holidays: ‘Happy Christmas’ Is a Mumblecore Mess That Tanks in Desperation
Anna Kendrick in Happy Christmas. Joe Swanberg is a prolific indie-prod writer-director specializing in largely improvised low-budget movies that depend on actors who know how to direct themselves. The...
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James Franco Takes His Directorial Meat Cleaver to Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Child...
Scott Have in Child of God. What did we do to deserve James Franco? A good actor who sees himself as director, writer, poet, artist, visionary and God only knows what else, he thinks he’s Orson Welles....
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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: ‘The Visit’ Is Revived as a Musical
Chita Rivera in The Visit. Dark, depressing and downbeat as Dante’s Inferno, Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s stinging drama The Visit has intrigued producers ever since its initial New York...
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Jesse Zwick’s Feature Debut, ‘About Alex,’ Is a Bold Start to a Promising Career
Jason Ritter in About Alex. Borrowing shamelessly from Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 hit The Big Chill, writer-director Jesse Zwick’s debut feature, About Alex, gathers an ensemble of talented unknowns (some...
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