The Shining is my go-to Stanley Kubrick film. But after numerous viewings, thoughts of Native American genocide, Hitler’s ovens, and/or the director helping to fake the Apollo moon landing have never once come up for discussion. Listen to the filmmakers, and Room 237 is a black eye to serious film …
When he hits...he hits hard. When he talks...he rocks. When he dances...he is G@$D FHAAD. When he loves...well, the trailer doesn't tell us. But still.
Vanilla noir. Grandpa Justin Timberlake stars as a hustling college student who rakes in kickbacks by steering fellow Princetonians to gambling websites. A trip to Costa Rica to voice an in-person complaint to a crooked tycoon, Ben Affleck, lands him a job. A vengeful cop (Anthony Mackie) soon intervenes, forcing …
Ron Howard, bloodied by the flopping of Cinderella Man but apparently unbowed, returns to the based-on-a-true-story sports movie. Here, he's gone to exotic, fleshy '70s Europe and the world of Formula One, where every race carries with it a 20 percent chance of death. Beautiful, brash British bad-boy James Hunt …
On the run from the law, big city gal Julianne Hough finds refuge in the arms of small town widower, Josh Duhamel. For its first hour, a regulation Nicholas Sparks teen romance, until all hell breaks loose in the form of maniac cop, David Lyons, and unintentional laughter reigns supreme. …
Walt Disney spent over 20 years of his life struggling to bring author P. L. Travers’s Mary Poppins to the screen. As if the story behind the making of Uncle Walt’s greatest commercial success didn’t provide enough fodder to craft a compelling narrative, screenwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith squander …
Those hoping for comedic quality due to the presence of Undercover Brother director Malcolm Lee will be disappointed. Everyone else will simply be depressed. What good is a PG-13 parody of R-rated movies? They bleep profanity, for fuck's sake! When the joke machine sputters, as it frequently does, cue Boots …
The most popular women's shoes at Bergdorf's sell for $6000 a pair. They can't keep them in stock. If just reading that fills you with egalitarian rage, then you will probably not enjoy this documentary profile of what is arguably the world's greatest department store. But if you can stomach …
James Thurber's nigh-unto-perfect short story about a little man with big daydreams gets the therapy-culture treatment from director and star Ben Stiller. No more flights of magnificent fancy as a means of coping with mundanity. No, now it's time to break the shackles and make all your dreams come true. …
A monstrous storm devastates Los Angeles, leaving the streets flooded and infested with sharks. Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, starring Ian Ziering, John Heard, and Tara Reid.
The blind may not be so hot at leading the blind, but the damaged may be in a unique position to repair the damaged in writer-director Destin Cretton's feature-length adaptation of his Sundance short. This version tells the story of Grace, a young woman (Brie Larson) working in a short-term …
A traveling zipper repairman from Delhi scours the countryside in search of a son he fears was kidnapped or sold into child trafficking. Don’t let subtitles becloud thinking. Given the urgent subject matter, plot contrivances, and director Richie Mehta’s untidy narrative structure, a dubbed version would be a ratings spark …
Back in 1989, indie film director Steven Soderbergh broke onto the scene with his first film: sex, lies, and videotape, a seamy, sticky drama about sex, lies, and videotape. Here in 2013, he is giving us what he says will be his last film: a seamy, sticky drama about sex, …
One can’t squawk too loudly about Sam Rockwell accepting walk-through roles in funny-papers blockbusters if they help him to underwrite spectacular performances in smaller projects like Moon and now as John Moon in A Single Shot. Director David M. Rosental turns up the backwoods atmospherics for this stylish thriller about …