Nine shorts from around the world come together to form an expertly curated celebration of movement and texture that’s not your average collection of sick, twisted, and stillborn cartoons. The subject matter (wooden matches die for a cigarette, two Norwegian construction workers debate normalcy, a painterly backdrop sets the tone …
While not a straightforward comedy, the film does entertain a kind of absurdist wit: what to do with a body that, having passed away at the start of Passover, must remain with the bereaved for five days? Fernando Luján as the ex-husband is amiably frumpy, nudging his way into the …
Or, "Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love — the Gay Remix." Two beautiful adolescent boys with no fathers and lousy mothers — blonde Pim's is a floozy who'd rather be touring on the accordion circuit, while dark-haired Gino's is neurotic and frail — find comfort in each other's …
The opening wit is “Can I finger you?” Next are the oral sex jokes, penis jokes, condom jokes, and the many meet-cutes of Natalie Portman (who opts for sex only) and Ashton Kutcher (who will take whatever he can get). Kutcher, who cannot act, takes his clothes off frequently. Portman …
The full title is Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (the Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration). The official film of the postwar Nuremberg war-crimes trial, which was released in Germany but not in America, is a captivating testament starring one of the supreme rogues’ galleries. Suave Albert Speer, odious Hans Frank, morosely bored Hermann …
Clemente (Bruno Odar) is a handsome, churlish money-lender in a poor section of Lima, Peru. His dull, cash-driven life changes when a baby is left to him (as payment?), and he recruits a devoutly Catholic debtor (Gabriela Velásquez) for childcare. Set during an October holy festival, this austerely observant, rather …
A fictional but deep treatment of French Cistercian monks whose peaceful life in rural Algeria runs afoul of armed Muslim militants. Their attempt to maintain piety and humanity is arrestingly specific, rooted, and charitable but not sanctimonious. Xavier Beauvois directed with a perceptive lucidity that echoes films by Rossellini and …
The devil comes to Colombia in the form of a dog whose rabid bite infects the blue-blood of a teenage, red-haired Rapunzel (Eliza Triana). Abandoned at a hellish convent by her father, the young girl eventually falls in love with her exorciser (Pablo Derqui). Many have tried, but when it …
Pro-tribal, pro-animal messages slip in easily, because Lavinia Currier’s film has Kris Marshall as Larry, based on real ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno. It also has equatorial Africa and the Pygmy people of the rain forest, so alive and rooted. The jungle, music, critters, not-too-generic natives, and Marshall’s casual but committed charm …
Emily Watson, in her best work in years, plays the English social worker Margaret Humphreys, whose dutiful life suddenly became a crusade when the case of a woman sent in childhood to Australia leads Humphreys to find the awful truth: 130,000 unwanted (often stigmatized as “illegitimate”) kids dispatched Down Under …
A prequel to 2009's Orphan finds 25-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman stepping out of a time machine to once again play Esther Albright, the 31 year-old woman born with proportional dwarfism, a physical disorder that allows her to pass for 12. The first thing you notice about the Estonian hospital that houses …
What? A bleak movie about the dying of the light coming out of Norway? What's next, an Irish film about drinking and brawling? Anders is 34, almost ready to leave rehab, and has had just about enough for your cockeyed optimism, thank you very much. Except really, what else is …
Or: Pennywise stops being pound foolish. Or at least lead-singer Jim Lindberg does, as he takes a long, hard look at the tension that arises between being a punk-rock icon and the father of three little girls. Other punk dads join the discussion, and the result is an intermittently fascinating …
More Cheech than Chong, Ned (Paul Rudd) is no idiot, but his goof-along sweetness and lack of drive make him an easy butt for the jokes and verdicts of his more structured sisters. They are richly played by Kathryn Hahn, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Mortimer, and Zooey Deschanel (who often seems …