Werner Herzog happened upon a friend who was screening four films about professional trappers in the Siberian taiga, tradesmen who for centuries have used the same system of capturing animals because they are “unable to invent something new." Herzog contacted its creator, Dmitry Vasyukov, and asked if he could change …
Upon moving into the title abode, Damon Wayans purchases a video camera and promises girlfriend Essence Atkins that he’s going to “film everything: Christmas, New Year’s, vagina.” One of the first images Wayans's camcorder captures is the imprint of Atkins’ rear tire just moments after it ran over his pooch’s …
It’s snob vs. slob as a tenacious Sandra Bullock stars alongside Melissa “What the fuck’s your problem?” McCarthy to form an unlikely pair of detectives (Laurel & Sharty?) forced to partner on cracking a dope ring. Set up, punchline, setup, punchline: Ms. Bullock puts the gags on a tee for …
From its bold opening long take – one of the most audaciously disconcerting and seductively executed lead-ins in many a moon — director Amat Escalante sends viewers hurtling downward on a topsy-turvy journey through his hellish depiction of Mexico’s war on drugs. Same familiar terrain, different cartel, you ask? Guess …
Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are) continues his intrepid exploration of your inner man-child, this time with a barely futuristic story about Theodore, a lonely guy (played by an opaque but vulnerable Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with his smart new operating system. "If you love your tech …
Documentary explores the far reaches of the universe.
Peter Jackson continues his mad quest to transform a ripping children's book into an all-encompassing epic. The result is a road movie with entirely too much baggage, a slog through the mires of exposition and special effects. With all the dwarves, wizards, hobbits, orcs, wargs, elves, spiders, dragons, man-bears, enchanted …
Fans of Middle Earth: at this point, you maybe kinda sorta have to wonder if Peter Jackson is just trolling you, no? First, he takes a short book written for children and stretches it into a monster epic trilogy. Now he's releasing extended versions of those three films? That takes …
In the middle of a holiday moviegoing season fraught with yarns of slavery, childhood mortality, cancer, senility, and an AIDS panacea as a cash cow, it’s amazing how refreshing a cheesy exploitation film can sound. Taking sole screenwriting credit, Sylvester Stallone lumps together shreds of his past glories to form …
A mighty contest between the cool, interior sci-fi stylings of writer-director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, In Time) and the overheated adolescent emotionality of Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the source material. Meyer wins in the end, but for the first two acts, the tension proves fruitful. Alien parasites known as …
Flinty-faced youngster Saoirse Ronan (looking alarmingly like a young Lara Flynn Boyle) gets her shot as an action heroine in this survival/road trip story set in England after London has been nuked. Who is responsible doesn't matter much, because the sphere of that action is wonderfully small-scale and ordinary: a …
La Dolce Vita — never actually all that sweet - gone properly sour. Open with an overhead shot of the cleanup following a swanky Italian gala. An employee mounts his bicycle and heads for home, only to be struck by a speeding SUV. There's your disaster, but on whose head …