Sincere story of answered prayers, mostly those of one Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), an ex-con who tastes mercy and tries to break free from his criminal past (he stole a loaf of bread). But the reformed man is pursued by Javert (Russell Crowe), a lawman who does not believe reform …
Another cobblestone in the well-intentioned path to cinema hell. This earnest and grievously routine outcast-comes-of-age drama tells the tale of a taciturn Aboriginal burn victim (Joel Evans), smitten by the prettiest girl in school (Chloe Rose) and taunted with cigarette lighters by the home room bully (Adam Butcher). Things quickly …
Cornball comedy from China in the vein of Kung Fu Hustle, involving a bandit who (by means of falsified identity) takes the position of governor in a rural province (circa 1919). He takes on the struggle of the people against the wealthy gangster who runs the town. Writer/director/actor Wen Jiang …
In order to snare a handsome, pedophobic divorcée, a young unwed party girl pretends that her roommate is the mother of her child. Krysten Ritter, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Kat Coiro, is enormously appealing as the baby momma. Ritter and co-star Kate Bosworth have the makings of a …
If Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel's novel had been nothing more than the story of a teenaged boy who survives a shipwreck only to find he must share his lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, it might have been a very fine - and often visually astonishing - adventure movie. …
A logical follow up to director Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy. From its opening long take — the lead character speaks from outside the frame — Kiarostami's sleight of hand draws us headfirst into this Tokyo tale of purposeful miscommunication and calculated role-playing. (A painting in the film Training a Parrot …
Four score and 150 minutes ago, Steven Spielberg shifted into his John Ford mode with this giant, myth-bolstering Golden Book of a movie. As the Civil War rages on, we open with a moment lifted from Saving Private Ryan: a shorter, but equally anonymous massacre. Inasmuch as it fails to …
New rule of cinema: when a character pilots a vehicle down a deserted, dead-silent street for what seems like an inordinate amount of time, chances are a truck is about to come along and simultaneously shatter the complacency and a few bones. Such is the fate of Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin, …
Scum in orbit. Visually monotonous, turgidly violent, inanely scripted, it concerns a 2079 revolt of convicts in space-ship prison, the President’s abducted daughter (Maggie Grace) — who still looks great after taking a syringe in her eyeball — and a special agent (Guy Pearce) who keeps flipping zingers as his …
"Men are always looking for something better. Women settle for what they get." That's the war cry of Lola (Greta Gerwig), after being unceremoniously kicked to the curb by her dreamy but hopelessly hollow boyfriend, Luke (human-Oreck Joel Kinnaman), three weeks prior to the ceremony. Lola is constantly finding something …
A monumental achievement in cinema-as-time-travel. Writer-director Julien Temple (Absolute Beginners, The Filth and the Fury) and his frequent editor, Caroline Richards, availed themselves of the opportunity to boil down 800 hours of sparklingly restored archival footage into a chronicle of modern-day London. The duo fling wide "the Gate of God," …
Director Julia Loktev’s adaptation of Tom Bissell’s claustrophobic short story, set in a place that is anything but: the Caucasus Mountains. At issue is manhood, or at least, how a man responds in the moment. Alex (a bearded Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (a redheaded Hani Furstenberg), adventurous and engaged …
A nifty idea botched by writer, director Rian Johnson's (Brick) unnecessarily dense plotting. (A calculatedly confusing storyline does not a good movie make.) Tickets should come with a road map (or a comic book adaptation) wrapped around them to help guide audiences through this. In a dystopian universe that resembles …
Or: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Abortion. Well, okay, not funny, exactly. But it does involve the world’s handsomest pickpocket (Peter Facinelli) fleeing from the world’s most bumbling future chief of police (Michael Madsen) with the world’s prettiest part-time waitress/pregnant paramour (Jaimie Alexander) in tow, before …