The title refers to a painting, but the subtitle —The Story of a Stolen Life — has to do with protagonist Theodore Decker, a child (and later in the film, a young man) whose development is arrested by the death of his mother in an explosion. And by his father’s …
Wanna make an audience cry? Throw a dog under the back wheels of a passing semi. Wanna make an audience laugh? Have a child say "fuck." Easy, ain’t it? The twist to this otherwise plotless and pointless bush-league exercise in stoner comedy is the casting of three minors (Jacob Tremblay, …
Looking to avoid spoilers? S/he (either Helen Mirren or Ian McKellen) joins a senior dating service under an assumed name, hoping to track down the person who did them wrong sixty years ago. Said person is also hiding behind an alias. But how did they know to join that particular …
Hidden from the outside world, the Great Bear Rainforest is one of the planet’s most exquisite and secluded wildernesses. Found on Canada’s rugged west coast, it is the largest temperate coastal rainforest in the world and is home to the indigenous First Nations people, who have provided stewardship of the …
It’s seldom that the prolific Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, Tristram Shandy) hits rock bottom, but when he does, expect to exit picking asphalt from your eyes. As much as one applauds the director’s desire to work in all types of film, he easily could have skipped the “toothless …
Every cast member in Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s too-too manicured satire of cookie-cutter correctness in suburbia sports braces. In case this benumbing nuance went unnoticed, the opening credits roll over a tight shot of a tin-grin ringed by quivering red lips. It’s this belt-and-suspenders approach to comedy that gives …
Before going to work, Carlos Spector feeds the gathering of birds that every morning congregates outside his door. If he’s in the mood for a brawl, rather than spreading the feed around, Spector stacks the grain in a neat pile for the birds to fight over. The fat fowl symbolize …
Basically a one-act, one-location play, with not enough material to justify its scant 74-minute running time. Jeff Daniels stars in and scripted this tale of Joseph Harris, an alcoholic (what else?) playwright who hasn’t produced bupkis in over 20 years. He agrees to mount his latest production (that has yet …
The question mark in the title of Penny Lane’s documentary on The Satanic Temple is integral to the story she’s telling. Like Satan himself — the original disrupter in the Garden of Eden, the rebel and accuser who bedevils the righteous — Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves is a troll. His …