A grimy homage to New York City before Giuliani applied the Disneyfied glaze. Wanted by Russian mobsters, the Chinese Triad, and his former NYPD allies, Jason Statham finds himself having to protect a four-year-old Chinese girl (Catherine Chan) whose photographic memory houses a precious numerical code. The story is so …
Denzel Washington rules again, his charisma little aged, but what’s the point of suavely dominating another spew of violent killings and barely credible suspense? Ryan Reynolds is a CIA agent whose boring life in South Africa is supercharged by the arrival of rogue super-agent Denzel. Also caught in the suction …
A Proustian fairy tale for anyone old enough to have regrets, Safety Not Guaranteed is also good humanist sci-fi. The technology (whether or not it’s actually real) exists in the service of genuinely human problems. Disappointed young woman (Aubrey Plaza) sets out to write a story on disappointed older dude …
The charm stretches but doesn’t break in Lasse Hallström’s odd, gentle comedy about a visionary sheikh (Amr Waked) who devises a dam, river, and salmon in dry, hot Yemen. Caught up in his crazy but moving scheme are two Brit dreamers (Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor). It has some of the …
Gianni Di Gregorio follows his modest hit Mid-August Lunch. Again he is the retired, sleepy, basset-eyed Roman treated like a servant by his sweet, controlling mom (Valeria De Franciscis, 96). Italian slacker charm is real, but there is only enough pep here for a short, stretched out as a feature. …
A feel-good movie that gets the job done, thanks in no small part to the enormous appeal of its star, Chris O’Dowd. As Dave Lovelace, a failed cruise ship director reduced to hosting talent shows in a local pub, O’Dowd is the blackest, most soulful “gubber” in all of New …
Oliver Stone’s latest “just say yes” endeavor is reminiscent of his work on Scarface. The only shock here is that 30 years later, the brutal killing and graphic dismemberment is being performed in the name of blowing weed, not snorting coke. Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch star as a pair …
Documentary about two South Africans who go searching for Rodriguez, a '70s rocker who fell off the map.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli cartoons Mary Norton’s famous story The Borrowers, with Miyazaki scripting and disciple Hiromasa Yonebayashi directing the animation house style of bucolic realism: lush plants, rain, clouds, cute critters, Victorian décor, hybrid (mainly Caucasian) ethnicity. Tiny, very human squatters below the floorboards fear the big “human beings” …
Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli cartoons Mary Norton’s famous story The Borrowers, with Miyazaki scripting and disciple Hiromasa Yonebayashi directing the animation house style of bucolic realism: lush plants, rain, clouds, cute critters, Victorian décor, hybrid (mainly Caucasian) ethnicity. Tiny, very human squatters below the floorboards fear the big “human beings” …
The cuteness doesn’t stop at the title. An asteroid set to collide with earth brings together a freshly-dumped insurance salesman (Steve Carell), a man whose television beams nothing but exposition and clumsy non-sequiturs, and a free-spirited neighbor (Keira Knightley). Lorene Scafaria, a screenwriter (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) making her …
Another Iranian movie steeped in humanity, with nuances that accentuate the virtues of a tight budget. A teen girl doesn’t want her parents to split, but Islamic and sexist issues intervene, as does grandfatherly Alzheimer’s. The cast is splendid (Sareh Bayat especially, as a scared caregiver), the direction deft and …
Did you hear the one about the 38-year-old virgin in the iron lung who hired a sex surrogate to take the cherry off the sundae? The trailer unspooled like a checklist of everything culpable in American cinema: a cute, fact-based, feel-good “disease of the week” romcom equipped with an endless …
Think Adaptation meets Pulp Fiction — with a heart! Or at least, with a beloved dog. Martin McDonagh, the writer-director behind the cleverly chatty crime comedy In Bruges, here casts Colin Farrell in the role of Marty(!), an alcoholic screenwriter who's having trouble coming up with a cast to fill …
British Intelligence agent Clive Owen gives thwarted IRA bomber Andrea Riseborough two choices: jail or inform on your own, which in this case happens to be her family. Director James Marsh’s proven track record as a documentarian (Man on Wire) combines with his uncanny flair for creating gritty period atmospherics …