How can a story laden with this much betrayal and corruption feel this cheerful? Welcome to Hawaii. Bradley Cooper smiles his way through the shenanigans as the wounded hero (physically, morally, spiritually, professionally) who has to choose which parts are worth healing and which can be cut away. Happily, he …
Generation Y gets its web-slinger, and as cash-grab reboots go, it’s not bad. This time, high-school dweeb Peter Parker isn’t such a nice guy at the outset: he’s a New Yorker, after all, and on top of that, he’s an orphan with a dad-shaped chip on his shoulder. And he’s …
Every superhero movie faces a choice: the man or the mask? Sure, there’s interplay, but ultimately, one feeds the other, storywise. Judging by the either goofy or nonsensical nature of the (admittedly balletic) fight scenes in he Amazing Spider-Man 2, you might be tempted to say that this sequel to …
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris — the team that brought you the irrepressibly cheerful Little Miss Sunshine — are back with another blast of candy-colored confection, this one based on what is considered by many to be the most highly publicized tennis match in history. Steve Carell stars as former …
What fun: a romantic comedy based on genuine human folly instead of some high-concept absurdity. Julianne Moore is a middle-aged woman adrift, so much so that she slips out of her marriage (to Steve Carell) and into another man's bed. Pathos ensues, with many of the laughs arising from moments …
A haughty fashion designer (Emma Thompson) and the seamstress most likely to dethrone her (Emma Stone) wage battle in this, the third live-action attempt on the part of the studio to ransack the Disney Vault, cancel originality, and in doing so, defile a classic. And what could be crueler than …
Surprisingly bright teen comedy, littered with tidbits of literary and cinematic erudition, about a viral high-school rumor that transmutes a studious virgin into a “dirty skank,” a lesson in “the accelerated velocity of terminological inexactitude.” The path the story takes is not always judicious (the girl plays up her new …
At the outset of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ gorgeous, witty, bawdy, bruising, depressing, and disheartening romp amid the English royals, Emma Stone — playing Abigail, a clever girl from a fallen family — faces an unpleasant choice: either tolerate the wretched sexual attentions of a man or be cast out into …
Gangster Squad may lack brains and heart, but it's got guts. You get to see 'em right at the outset, when a Chicago crook who dares to cross power-mad Los Angeles gangster Mickey Cohen (a guttural Sean Penn) gets ripped in half by a couple of sedans. (Then again, you …
The young white ladies of Jackson, Mississippi (circa 1960) install additional bathrooms to avoid sharing a seat with the colored waitstaff. As a result, crusading young writer Emma Stone pens a tell-all, blasting the lid off bigotry. Working from a best-selling novel, writer/director Tate Taylor reduces all blacks to angels, …
Bimbo comedy about an evictee from the Playboy Mansion (a frisky Anna Faris) who becomes house mother to the misfits of Zeta Sorority, helpfully dumbing them down. Admittedly, the anti-intellectualism is balanced by an attempt at smartening up the bimbo, but there is, in every sense, nothing to it. With …
Woody Allen at his most exhausted and self-parodying. A philosophy professor (a begutted Joaquin Phoenix) — newly arrived for the summer session at a quaint Rhode Island college, and bored with himself, philosophy, and life in general — finds inspiration in the notion of directly, concretely making the world a …
The film follows a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined …
The film follows a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined …
Billed as a movie lover’s dream for a reason: the eye hasn’t seen this much color on screen since Vincente Minnelli passed. The songs and musical numbers are lively, the cast attractive, all attempts to transform city streets into expressionistically lit studio backlots successful, and the ending decidedly downbeat. And …