Animator Michel Ocelot presents six fables in six different settings.
A household of sagging career fishermen living on a paradisaical Sicilian island that doubles as a summer getaway for wealthy tourists come face-to-face with a well-intentioned, message-laden script. The set-up and introduction of the characters showed promise. Director Emanuele Crialese opens by elegantly casting a net over the audience — …
Terri, played by newcomer Jacob Wysocki, is an overweight teenager who must endure the typical peer belligerence of adolescence. The high school scenes stir up some authenticity: the horniness, the misfits, the tenure-chasing teachers. John C. Reilly plays a well-meaning, if a bit clueless, principal. Director Azazel Jacobs’s style is …
Six tales of the horrible and supernatural set in an abandoned theater rich in Grand Guignol vibes. It has several directors and stars Udo Kier, Catriona MacColl, Tom Savini, Shane Woodward.
Roland Joffé remains the thick, ponderous director who made The Mission and The Killing Fields. It takes some time to see that this lavish but feeble drama set mostly in the Spanish Civil War is a chapel candle for Josemaría Escrivá, founder of the rightist Catholic organization Opus Dei. Charlie …
A prequel to the 1982 remake of the 1951 original. Pretty lady scientist (is there any other kind these days?) heads down to Antarctica to examine an unusual specimen discovered in the ice. Things go awry. The frozen wasteland is put to good, foreboding use, but director Matthijs van Heijningen …
Director Kenneth Branagh almost manages a comic-book marriage of heaven and earth. Heaven, or rather Asgard, is full of mystical sci-fi, portentous speech, and world-shattering drama. Earth, meanwhile, provides comic relief and a forum for personal matters: character building, falling in love, etc. Both the visuals and the acting have …
Not quite Dumas, but no dummy. The brash new Muskies: Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans), Porthos (Ray Stevenson), plus D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) like a 17th-century mall dude. Add saucy, athletic Milady (Milla Jovovich), haughty Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom), cruel Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen), and not-very-Catholic Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz): …
How many movies are life affirming? This one is. Inspiration floods Mark Landsman’s documentary about the Kashmere Stage Band, a bunch of black high-schoolers in Houston led to jazzy heights by their teacher and leader, the tough and tireless master of sonic funk Conrad “Prof” Johnson. Their ’70s sound remains …
An intricate condensation of John le Carré’s novel, previously a BBC sprawler starring Alec Guinness. As the very dry, very British spy master Smiley, Gary Oldman is nearly at Sir Alec’s level. Tomas Alfredson’s film is all micro-plot observation, with expert details that link, fester, and spin webs. Sad, brainy, …
True to title, it pops up but then lies flat. The memoir of British celebrity-chef Nigel Slater was turned by S.J. Clarkson into this quaint coming-out fable. His perky, retro, storybook styling serves the humor about bad British cuisine, but larger emotional themes go hungry. Oscar Kennedy is boy Nigel …
Rage about elite-hustler Bernie Madoff gets hashed into Brett Ratner’s heist comedy. Alan Alda plays the smug, Madoff-ian figure, who even scams the pensions of the decent, obsequious people who run his luxury high-rise. The building manager (Ben Stiller) looks for payback, with a milquetoast (Matthew Broderick), a nerd (Casey …
The film opens with a bit of historical hogwash, suggesting that America’s Cold War Space Race was actually motivated by a crashed alien transport. The ship carries the technology to open a “space bridge,” by which instantaneous travel across the universe is possible. Everyone involved wants the tech, and the …