A sermon written on a golf scorecard. Young pro Luke (Lucas Black) messes up, his rage fueled by his demanding dad. But in Utopia, Texas, he finds ex-golfer Johnny (Robert Duvall), whose wise week of lessons includes fishing, painting, horses, rodeo, even a delightful lass (Deborah Ann Woll). Duvall, in …
Less a film than an attractively illustrated chronicle of sexual pathology. Brandon (Michael Fassbender) needs sex and lots of it — with whores, with pickups, with his hand. Pretty much anything, really, as long as the encounter is impersonal. The pathology does not tolerate humanity. But humanity arrives in the …
Ho-hum period piece from China about a warlord who, after witnessing the death of his daughter, seeks redemption by embracing the life of a Buddhist monk. His transformation is mostly recycled from other films such as Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and Jet Li’s Fearless: the combative man who …
Hilarious: this is a film in which the bad guys plan to capitalize on the popularity of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week by selling “the hardcore shit,” i.e., video of sharks actually eating people. But the film itself is tame enough to pick up a PG-13 rating. Even more hilarious: a …
More a tournament of effects. In this franchise, the great sleuth has become a 19th-century Bond empowered by 21st-century pyrotechnics and whiz-by editing. The clues come so fast we’d need a computer to grasp them, as Guy Ritchie puts Sherlock (“Sherley” to his brother) through hectic paces including mad chases, …
Joseph Dorman’s wonderful documentary uses a stunning harvest of photos and film clips to examine the life, art, and context of the man born Solomon Rabinovich, whose stories made literature of Yiddish, inspiring his people and (no minor thing) Fiddler on the Roof. Humor was his central tool for understanding …
The film takes its title from a series of audio recordings that became an underground phenomenon in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The recordings take their title from one of the more frequent bits of invective hurled between the men being recorded: a pair of aging, miserable, and supremely …
Jonah Hill pays a slob assigned the task of overseeing a trio of ill-behaved neighborhood kids. When pseudo-girlfriend Ari Graynor calls, offering intercourse in exchange for coke, Hill takes the children on a wild ride through the urban ghetto. If it wasn’t for plot coincidence, there would be no plot …
Spain’s wizard of chic effrontery, Pedro Almodóvar, again wraps his elegant style around desperate, sexy, ruthless people. But there isn’t the motor of female emotion (and perverse fun) that the gay director often finds in his leading women. Instead, Antonio Banderas is a statuesque plastic surgeon who uses a lithe …
A mysterious vortex transports a race of little blue beings, no more than three road apples high, from their magical kingdom to the streets of Manhattan. Hey, kids, wanna hear some filthy smurfing words? "Plot." "Pacing." "Timing." Four smurfing mothersmurfers are given screenwriting credit. It takes forever for nothing to …
A cartel man gets caught and forced to go undercover. Worst job ever? Worst job ever. Based on the true story of Andres Lopez Lopez.
Two women in Shanghai are laotong sisters (bonded chums for life). As one of them researches another laotong pair in 19th-century China, the film opts for long, almost lacquered flashbacks. Wayne Wang’s bland feminist reverie is a scroll of pretty views and stilted acting, with enough big issues (foot-binding, male …
Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin, like a pocket-issue Marlo Thomas) is the best friend of Darcy (Kate Hudson, still a junior issue of her mother, Goldie Hawn), who plans to marry Dex (Colin Egglesfield, a streamlined issue of Tom Cruise). Loads of old history curl into new plot twists as the women …
He is a pasty, sullen, smoking ex-con in a Norwegian town defined by dirty snow and fishy food. He works as a mechanic and has mechanical sex with two drably available women. He begins to shrug off his criminal instincts, even feeling a nagging pull of loyalty. He is acted …