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Lasse Halström Explores the Sensuality of Food in ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’
Heen Mirren as Madame Mallory in The Hundred-Foot Journey. Forget about The Food Network. The real restaurant wars this summer are taking place on the big screen, in Lasse Halström’s delectable,...
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In ‘What If,’ Daniel Radcliffe Makes His First Attempt at Romantic Comedy
Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan in What If. In his attempt to prove there is life after Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe is like the marathon contestant with one leg. He’s running as fast as he can. What...
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‘This Is Where I Leave You’ Fritters Away Jane Fonda’s Considerable Talent
Jane Fonda and Jason Bateman in This Is Where I Leave You. I can’t imagine any film starring Jane Fonda to be a total loss, but This Is Where I Leave You, a vulgar, inept and gruesomely contrived load...
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‘Bootycandy’ Is a Tasteless Mish-Mash of Ugly Stereotypes Verging on Racism
Phillip James Brannon, Jesse Pennington and Lance Coadie Williams in Bootycandy. (Photo by Joan Marcus) In the good old days, when Playwrights Horizons was snugly ensconced in a brick warehouse down in...
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‘Pride’ Is a Liberating Film in the Spirit of ‘Billy Elliot’ and ‘The Full...
Pride is one of the hippest examples of liberating enlightenment ever seen on film. Forging an alliance between gay activists and striking miners was as hard to imagine in the U.K. during the turbulent...
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In ‘Good People,’ James Franco and Kate Hudson Face a Moral Dilemma
James Franco and Kate Hudson. James Franco again, more subdued and less hokey than usual, this time in something called Good People, the kind of routine thriller they used to show on Thursday and...
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‘The Two Faces of January’ Is a Tense Adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith...
Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst. Carefully directed and gorgeous to look at, with haunting performances and maximum suspense, The Two Faces of January is an exemplary thriller about murder and sex in...
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‘Almost Home’ Is a Solemn Affair While ‘The Money Shot’ Will Make the Ladies...
Joe Lisi, left, Jonny Orisini and Karen Ziemba in Almost Home. (Photo by Carol Rosegg) Eighty minutes with no intermission is my kind of play, but Almost Home, a slight but well-written, one-act play...
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Rita Wilson Has Personality, but It Doesn’t Mean She Should Sing
Rita Wilson, center, at the Café Carlyle. (Photo by Michael Wilhoite) Rita Wilson, a.k.a. Mrs. Tom Hanks, has arrived at New York’s swanky Café Carlyle, a sacred watering hole for the rich and tasteful...
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Suburban Ennui: David Fincher’s ‘Gone Girl’ Is a Big, Pretentious Letdown
Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck in David Fincher’s Gone Girl. Preposterous, illogical, senselessly over-plotted and artificial as a ceramic artichoke, David Fincher’s Gone Girl is another splatterfest...
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Madcap Kaufman and Hart Revival Is Stark Contrast to ‘Stalking the Bogeyman’
Rose Byrne and Mark Linn-Baker in You Can’t Take It With You. (Photo by Joan Marcus) Like the perk of validated parking, sometimes seeing a play justifies all the trouble it takes to get there. You’ll...
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‘The Good Lie’ Follows Sudanese Refugees On Their Arduous Journey to America
Reese Witherspoon and Ger Duany in The Good Lie. Buxom, tough, and devoid of any trace of glamour, Reese Witherspoon may be the reason French-Canadian director Philippe Falardeau (Oscar-nominated...
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‘The Killing of Sister George,’ Now Revived Off Broadway, Has a Timeless Appeal
Margot White, left, and Caitlin O’Connell star in The Killing of Sister George. (Photo by Marielle Solan) If you were never lucky enough to see the late, great Beryl Reid in Frank Marcus’s fabulous...
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‘Curious Incident’ Lives Up to the Hype, and Danner Brings Magic to ‘Country...
Alex Sharp stars in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at The Ethel Barrymore. (Photo by Joan Marcus) Riding in on a tsunami of hype from across the pond, I feared The Curious Incident...
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In ‘The Judge,’ Duvall and Downey Are Unforgettable as a Complex Father-Son Pair
Robert Downey Jr., left, and Robert Duvall in The Judge. Like a court case that ends in unanimous conquest for the defendant, The Judge is a perfect movie—provocatively written, intensely mounted,...
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Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons Trade Solos in ‘Whiplash’
Miles Teller, left, and J.K. Simmons star in Whiplash. Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, the rough, tough Whiplash was tagged by one wag, in it’s unveiling at the recent Toronto International...
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Bill Murray Sinks to Unexplored Levels of Immaturity in Ho-Hum Comedy ‘St....
Bill Murray, left, and Jaeden Lieberher star in St. Vincent. A good cast is credited with supporting Bill Murray in the uneven and largely unfunny so-called comedy St. Vincent, but it’s actually the...
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Try as She Might, Molly Ringwald Is Not a Jazz Singer
Molly Ringwald runs through a torturous set at the Café Carlyle. (Photo by Michael Wilhoite) Molly Ringwald made her reputation 30 years ago, in all those forgettable, I.Q.-diminishing John Hughes...
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‘Found’ Is a Theatrical Compendium of Discarded Notes, Ideas, and Poems
Daniel Everidge, Barrett Wilbert Weed and Nick Blaemire in Found. One day in Chicago, a fellow named Davy Rothbart, directionless, despondent and depressed after losing his job, found a strange note on...
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Friedman’s Complaint: ‘Listen Up Philip’ Is More Pretentious Than Roth Himself
Elisabeth Moss and Jason Schwartzman star in Listen Up Philip. A pointless, pathetic and profoundly boring send-up of universally acknowledged anti-social author Philip Roth, Listen Up Philip is a...
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