Most guys pass out after a spirited round of lovemaking. Not this guy. Incapable of replacing fantasy with reality, porn addict Don Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) can’t wait to knock off a one-night stand and scurry to his computer for some quality alone time. It’s very hard to make a smart …
A sophisticated mix of illicit romance and unconventional religion, from the Graham Greene novel, set in Second World War-time England. Writer-director Neil Jordan, working from sturdier source material than in, say, Interview with the Vampire or The Butcher Boy, gets little of the credit for the clever narrative structure, only …
Derivative and undemanding and slightly diverting s-f spoof to do with a single-cell alien species that touches down in Arizona and evolves at an accelerated rate into computer-animated worms, bugs, lizards, and ultimately, thanks to a massive intake of napalm calories, into a humongous amorphous chewing-gum blob. Foremost among the …
At the outset, Todd Haynes carries us on a crane over a Peyton Place-y town square (or square town) and into the glossy world of the 1950s "women's picture." It is mildly amazing how straight he plays it, or anyway how deadpan, although there are nonetheless as many laughs as …
Science-fiction thriller that takes a good long while to declare itself as such. A grieving mother, Julianne Moore, acting as if this were no less serious a business than The Hours or Far from Heaven, continues to make daily visits to her nine-year-old son's bedroom -- his dresser, his Mets …
From a novel and screenplay by Richard Price, directed by Joe Roth, a ripped-from-today's-headlines thriller that amounts to a virtual collage of newspaper clippings: child abduction, domestic violence, police brutality, racial profiling, ghetto rioting, and whatnot. Julianne Moore is once again a bereft mother, but in trying out, for a …
Three features and five years after Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria cracked the international film scene, the Chilean director seems to be out of ideas, as evidenced by this American-speaking remake for gringos too lazy to grapple with subtitles. It’s set in contemporary Los Angeles, but when was the last time you …
True to “My Life on the Road,” the 2015 autobiography that director Julie Taymor uses for inspiration, a good portion of the film takes place in Greyhounds and train cars, their wheels a rolling throughline linking past with present. It’s not uncommon to find two performers cast as the same …
The mousy librarian, neglected by her policeman husband, gets his attention by claiming credit for the murder in the love-nest motel: "Maybe she reads too much." Director Allan Moyle really bears down on the menace and violence (a Cajun-accented William Forsythe), and doesn't ease up much on the comedy. Such …
Sequel to The Silence of the Lambs: long, slow, eventually revolting; less a fright film than an anguish film; somber, overinflated, operatic (it stresses the "grand" in Grand Guignol); no doubt a disappointment to people who actually wanted a sequel; of little interest to people who didn't. It could have …
No disrespect is meant in describing this as a consummate "women's picture." But inasmuch as the major-studio women's picture is practically a thing of the past, it will have to be a high-toned, high-flown one with illustrious literary connections. Two such connections, to be exact, the first to the Pulitzer …
For a film about rebelling against the oppressive overlords who just want to drain your precious resources for their own benefit, it's awfully greedy with your time and treasure. You know, because, in an effort to make two movies from one very popular book, they've padded out this installment — …
After the forced histrionics of Part 1, it’s nice to see star Jennifer Lawrence being allowed to quiet down and act again. But the story still feels stretched, a countdown that slows as it approaches zero hour. The various Districts, long divided and conquered by the Capitol, have united behind …
Somewhat heavy reading of Oscar Wilde's stage comedy of manners and morals. Julianne Moore, as Mrs. Cheveley, has the role that makes everything go, and she is fully present and alert in it, and her departure before the final act is a grave loss. Rupert Everett seems strangely uncommitted, and …