David Gelb’s documentary about Jiro Ono, a sage master chef of sushi in Tokyo, has the quick art, fine detailing, and lucid skill that Jiro shows in his kitchen and when serving. Lucky are the diners, envious are we voyeurs. The sea life has gone to heaven.
Disney reaches back to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series for its most recent adventure saga. The fuzzy 3-D is a nuisance, but the artwork is competent and the interaction of live actors and digital images is nearly seamless. Taylor Kitsch plays Carter, a disgruntled war hero from Virginia (circa mid-1800s) …
Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park in a sequel that will amuse children and cause parents to wonder why they dropped the extra money for 3-D glasses. Josh Hutcherson returns, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays the role of father figure inexplicably vacated by Brendan Fraser. Much ado is made over …
The gospel offspring of Sister Act and Burlesque, involving a choir rivalry between the church’s two top vocalists (Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah). Parton’s charm is masked by her cosmetic work — she has one expression, no matter the emotion. Latifah’s maternal dignity is the film’s saving grace, but the …
The perky pop princess enters the concert film derby, with a failing marriage to provide personal pathos.
Boy (Thure Lindhardt) meets boy number two (Zachary Booth) while dialing for hookups, boy hooks up with boy number two and is then told not to get his hopes up, since boy number two has a girlfriend. But whaddya know, the boys eventually get together, and everything would be great …
Another wonderful movie done with the brisk, alert, almost reportorial care of the Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Their approach is grave but not thudding. Thomas Doret is terrific as the skinny, willful lad who feels abandoned and hopes his bike will rejoin him with his father (Jérémie Renier, …
In order to hammer home its point about American morality with regard to money as manifested on the macro level by the 2008 financial crisis and on the micro level by the machinations of some truly unpleasant urban lowlifes, Killing Them Softly asks the audience to believe that the patrons …
Eugene Domingo does double duty as Dora and Kimmy in this tale of a haunted girl who will herself haunt your waking dreams.
Despite touches of brutality, this dramatized salute to tireless Burmese freedom leader Aung San Suu Kyi is too ladylike. Michelle Yeoh plays her like a cross between Gandhi and Audrey Hepburn, and Luc Besson’s direction often seems like a civics lesson. David Thewlis plays the heroine’s almost equally suffering British …
Way down south in Beunos Aires, there is a fat, balding dude who performs as Elvis. Thing is, he never really stops performing. Just watch the trailer.
On the threshold of its 25th anniversary concert, the renowned Fugue String Quartet finds itself on the verge of dissolution, as its members begin to bow under the tension between personal goods and the good of the group (namely, the music that it makes). If the script is occasionally indulgent …
It begins like a modern-day vampire movie; eye-line closeups of gawking spectators intercut with low-angle views — taken from behind so as to obscure the face — of a woman clad in tasteful business attire striding purposefully amid misty cityscapes. Is it writer-director Xavier Dolan’s desire to depict a transexual …
Southern-fried Godfather: diminutive kid brother (Shia LaBeouf, who seems to be trying a little too hard) wants in on the family moonshine business, but his godlike (read: unkillable) elders (a more impressive Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke) will hear none of it. We even get a botched assassination attempt and …
PTSD veteran takes a troubled boy under his wing. Complications ensue. Probably not a good idea to have nearly all the praise-quotes in your trailer come from a single source.