India's holy men, the yogis, in their own words, but in the voices of English dubbers. There are at present thirteen million of them (a dying breed, according to one), and video documentarist Paula Fouce can focus on only a small handful, principally Shiv Raj Giri, chosen for authenticity and …
Two-and-a-quarter-hour history lesson, trimmed down from two and a half after its initial release, on John Smith and Pocahontas, and the latter's marriage to another, John Rolfe, and her intended sojourn in England which became instead her eternal rest. Terrence Malick's account is not a love story, or not just …
Two-and-a-quarter-hour history lesson, trimmed down from two and a half after its initial release, on John Smith and Pocahontas, and the latter's marriage to another, John Rolfe, and her intended sojourn in England which became instead her eternal rest. Terrence Malick's account is not a love story, or not just …
Manichean fantasy made in Russia (by Timur Bekmambetov) but infused with a universal underground-comic sensibility. It may therefore please the proponents of homogeneity. A long prologue in a generic Dark Age (with narration in English before the subtitles take over) lays out the background of "the eternal war, light against …
Nine differing women, divided into nine single takes, each around twelve minutes in length, with some crossover of characters from one segment to another. The form itself makes a statement, something about their lives being separate, but equal, but connected. The acting is mostly strong; the writing is sometimes stagy; …
A sexual-harassment horror story, single-minded if not simple-minded, set in the Mesabi Iron Range of Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes, Not Quite That Many Hideous Open-Pit Craters, Two Dead Stags Strapped to a Flatbed, and Untold Chauvinist Pigs. (The soundtrack, a tad predictably, makes use of several songs by that …
Alternative-reality exercise, written by Benjamin Brand and directed and edited by Greg Harrison, offers up three different versions of a convenience-store stickup, padded out at barely over an hour in running time. The bottom-drawer digital photography looks as if you forgot to remove your sunglasses on entering the theater. Courteney …
Feel-goodery with a stiff upper lip. A "redundant" Glasgow shipbuilder, still haunted by the drowning death of one of his sons thirty years ago, and protectively walled-off from his thirty-something surviving son, undertakes a secret six-month training program to swim the English Channel with nothing at stake but his self-worth. …
Tacky Thai martial-arts adventure about a backwater Buddha's head severed and stolen by Bangkok bad guys, and about the acrobatic rube who answers the call: "If we can't recover Ong-Bak's head, our village is doomed." (Ong-Bak and the Thai warrior, clearly, are separate entities.) The filmmaking style places a heavy …
Further provocation from Todd Solondz (Storytelling, Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse), on the hot-potato topics of teen pregnancy, abortion, pedophilia, evangelical Christians. Willing to offend, unwilling to coddle, he seems almost more callous than fearless. His big brainstorm this time is to multiply the gimmick that Luis Buñuel hit upon …
Step by step through a suicide-bombing mission in Tel Aviv, gone off the rails when one of the chosen two ("This honor is granted only to a few") begins to doubt his fate. This puts a face, as they say, on the Islamic terrorist (the good stony face of Kais …
A self-described "teenage gypsy" hopes to bring stability to her life by wooing her nomadic single mom with flowers and E-mails in the guise of a Secret Admirer. Torturously contrived comedy tilting toward a transparently tidy resolution. Hilary Duff continues to seem a sweet young thing, callously ill-used. She and …
Taut, tough, gritty, realistic French policier (no background music to pump it up at any point) picks up the title character at his graduation from the police academy and doggedly follows him to his first assignment as a plainclothesman in Paris, to the receipt of his first gun, to his …
Mauling satire of a high-school vixen (a ready and willing Evan Rachel Wood) and her victims, as she finagles her way from the lead role in the Drama Club Diary of Anne Frank to a featured part in the network sitcom, Dysfunction. It shoots for the vein of Heathers, Election, …
By this time the Jane Austen novel qualifies as a repertory piece, a mettle-test for would-be Darcys and Elizabeth Bennets, little different from Romeo and Juliet. The team behind the present production of it, apart from their attempt to replace the titular conjunction with a dashing ampersand, earn no points …