The lyrical intersection of two planets (Earth and its unexpected twin), two genres (the soaper and sci-film film), and two people. Both the soap and science are gently measured out, as Brit Marling (who also co-scripted) recovers from a tragic accident by helping her unintended victim (William Mapother). Her devoted …
A wedding at an Annapolis estate leads to major family fireworks. Sam Levinson wrote and directed. With Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Demi Moore, Ezra Miller, Thomas Hayden Church, and George Kennedy.
British filmmaker Mike Leigh again looks compassionately at hard-pressed though often amusing lives. It centers on a kind geologist (Jim Broadbent) and his motherly wife (Ruth Sheen). There is much talk, wine, tea, food, and gardening, and too much of a needy alcoholic friend (Lesley Manville), a drippy runoff from …
Russell Brand plays the loveable drunk made profitably famous by Dudley Moore. Helen Mirren is his nanny, with a snarky crust that falls short of John Gielgud’s Hobson in the 1981 film. Brand lifts his voice to boyish, even girlish heights as the boozing playboy who seeks to avoid union …
Fearing a possible breach of the “no child left behind” clause, it’s up to Santa’s son, Arthur, to save the family business by delivering one last present. Other than the fact that all of the characters appear to suffer from rosacea rhinophyma, this witty, handsomely appointed 3-D animated feature is …
A comedy of unreserved movie love, shot in Hollywood by French director Michel Hazanavicius. Big silent star George (like a merger of Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, and Warren William) falls when sound arrives. The casting of brash, funny, hugely likeable Jean Dujardin as George gives heart to the charm. Bérénice …
As a bright, depressed teen slacking through his grad year at prep school, former child star Freddie Highmore still gets closeups that follow him like fawning groupies. He and sexy Emma Roberts coyly play “just friends,” as the story dawdles. Gavin Wiesen directed this Highmore showcase, with not enough art …
The first installment of a story of a dystopian future, an adaptation of the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand.
In vast London, only a cute nurse (Jodie Whittaker), some punks, and housing-project cannabis growers seem aware that nasty aliens are landing like meteors (is there a royal wedding or anti-government riots on TV?). Joe Cornish’s first feature seems made for English Comic-Con fans who will savor the goofy violence, …
Well, now. A pretty English ghost-hunter (or rather, hoax-hunter) journeys to an English boarding school where the boys keep going missing. Can it be that her faith in science will prove insufficient in the face of the terrors she encounters there? With Rebecca Hall, Dominic West.
Harry Hunkele’s documentary is a methodical, absorbing view of the 1978-79 peace accords between Egypt and Israel, spurred by Egypt’s bold leader Anwar Sadat, nurtured tenaciously by President Jimmy Carter, and finally accepted by Israel’s tough, fearful Menachem Begin. It traces the byzantine maneuvers, often in secret, that led to …
Poor Elizabeth Halsey. She needs $10,000 for new boobs, the kind big enough to attract a sugar daddy by sheer gravitational pull. But, alas, she’s just a poor teacher, in every sense of the word. Whatever will she do? Doesn’t matter, really: the point here is hearing Cameron Diaz talk …
Documentary-style drama about the real-life, high-risk team of photojournalists (two Pulitzers amongst them) working in the final days of Apartheid South Africa. There is a good deal of romanticizing over the plight of the photographer, at least in his most guerilla form, and the film raises some ethical questions regarding …
On his pot gut and sagging shoulders, Paul Giamatti carries this wry, baggy treatment of Mordecai Richler’s last novel. A Montreal TV hustler, drinker, hockey gambler, and womanizer, Barney is a Jewish rebel devoid of cause or much excuse. But Giamatti doses the story in his caustic charm, even as …