Retro mountain film, set evocatively in the place and time of the bergfilme heyday, Germany in the Thirties: two uncommitted soldiers in Hitler’s army, but committed mountaineers, join the pre-Olympics push to conquer “the last problem of the Alps,” the north face of the Eiger, alias “the Wall of Death.” …
Faith-based marital counseling for a tritely imagined fictional couple. Even if the ecclesiasticism doesn’t much intrude, the film presents its case so poorly you might find yourself rooting for the black husband (the charismatic Morris Chestnut) to run off with the white divorcee (Maeve Quinlan). Based on the novel by …
Not the Hitchcock classic nor a remake. Far, far from it. Rather, an exploitive session of gangsta-gazing, namely at rap artist Notorious B.I.G., alias Biggie Smalls, né Christopher Wallace, and at the lethal rivalry between the East Coast camp and the West Coast. (Laughable shot of Biggie on the couch …
Delusional mall cop (a close-cropped, clean-shaven Seth Rogen) with real-cop aspirations comparable to those of the title character of Paul Blart, but with a deeper and wider vein of psychosis: manic highs, sadistic lows. The maker of The Foot Fist Way, Jody Hill, enters the mainstream for the purposes of …
The Winged Migration team, Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, take their clear-eyed cameras out of the air and into the water, carrying on in the wake of another Jacques — Cousteau — to build a big-screen aquarium, phantasmagoric in effect, and maybe sometimes stupefying. A fair amount of fish-eat-fish and …
Adoption nightmare wherein an affluent suburban couple, parents of two children already, immediately replace their stillborn baby with a nine-year-old Russian of cute accent and evil intent. Outside of a committed performance from Vera Farmiga as the troubled mother, it’s all very routine until the dilly of a surprise twist, …
Nothing much to add to OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies — the Bondian swinging superspy as sexist xenophobe — perhaps even a little something to subtract in color and style, but a different exotic locale, a later period (the twist, miniskirts, hippies), a new focus of satire (anti-Semitism), and …
Iron Age science fiction for the Neanderthal adolescent. A sensitive, soft-spoken, short-haired stranger from a strange land crashes his spaceship in the midst of the lusty, loud, long-haired Vikings (plus a feisty feminist pacifist warrior princess), and leads the hunt for a cartooned alien monster that passes in Old Norway …
A piece of advocacy journalism by Kirby Dick, a name-naming witch hunt to ferret out closeted gay politicians (Larry Craig, Charlie Crist, David Dreier, et al.) who in public life work against the cause of gay rights. This, to whatever extent it exists, never mind whatever extent it can be …
Two astronauts wake up from hypersleep to find themselves more or less in the middle of a video game, greased martial artists versus slimy mutants, for the fate of humanity. Dark, incomprehensible topography and action, bone-rattling sound effects and music. With Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid, Cam Gigandet, and Antje Traue; …
Oddball blend of documentary and pseudodocumentary on the subject of love in general and its absence, in particular, from the life of comedienne Charlyne Yi. “It’s about I don’t believe in love,” she sums up the project with characteristic informality and infelicity. This absence might be more puzzling or alarming …
Young San Diego couple purchase a camcorder to document the "entity" — diagnosed by a psychic as a demon, not a ghost — that has haunted the female on and off since girlhood. Dirt-cheap digital horror film builds, not too high, to some effective frissons. The fixed-position camera during sleeptime …
Sven and Goran, a gay couple eager to adopt, are misled by a “small typographical error” into expecting their Patrik to be one-point-five years old instead of the troubled fifteen-year-old he turns out to be. It feels like a Swedish Afterschool Special: mild homophobia, a trial separation, everything smoothed over …
A hypoglycemic overweight eight-time reject from the Jersey State Troopers, trying to make the most of a job as security guard, can’t handle a speeding old duffer in a wheelchair or a bellicose fat lady at Victoria’s Secret, yet he rises to the challenge of a highly trained team of …