On the brink of adulthood with three young women in a Connecticut fishing village, each of them characterized with a branding iron and sent down a path as constricting as a cattle chute. Kat, the most interesting of the three, is the smart one, is astronomy, is Mozart, is four …
A reunion of the star and the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis respectively, both very skillful in their differently frothy and frilly ways. But now Julia Roberts crashes the party, in a self-referential role ("It's taken two rather painful operations to get me …
Superdeluxe remake of a Rat Pack lark of 1960: a happy-go-lucky, jolly-good-fellows, high-tech, clean-as-a-whistle casino heist, with a star-studded cast (Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan). There are sellouts, to be sure, and then there are sellouts, …
The gang of scammers and heisters reassembles on a weak premise (revenge for the backstabbed and cardiac-arrested Elliott Gould), weaker even than the deeper premise of making a huge pile of money for Warner Brothers. Despite the "emotional" motivation, there is no loss of smugness (only a loss of Julia …
The gang of eleven, the ersatz Rat Pack, reconvenes (Clooney, Pitt, Damon, et al.); the newcomer, the apparent twelfth, is not a member of the gang at all, but a member of law enforcement (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Even the victim of the previous heist returns (Andy Garcia), rounding up each of …
In essence, Nancy Drew Goes to Law School. (And Solves the Murders of Two Supreme Court Justices, Where the FBI, the CIA, and the DCPD Have Failed.) (Or as the heroine herself puts it: "The hubris of the young, huh?") (Or as the White House Chief of Staff puts it, …
Cinderella story (or as one of the characters self-consciously puts it: "Cinde-fuckin'-rella") wherein Prince Charming is a corporate raider and the Pitiful Drudge is a Hollywood streetwalker: "You and I are such similar creatures, Vivian. We both screw people for money." Neither of the players (nor the screenwriter) gets inside …
Shooting in his habitual indolent zooms (and reverse zooms) and telephoto pans, through a half-blinding dust storm, Robert Altman here recycles the "critically acclaimed" formula of Nashville and The Player -- and, without the acclaim, The Wedding and Health -- in the different setting of Parisian haute couture: a herd …
The reunion of the stars and director of Pretty Woman (not to forget supporting actor Hector Elizondo) is a Nineties-style screwball comedy, tolerable to the degree that you can tolerate the two stars. For many, presumably, that will be highly. Julia Roberts's constant sending-out of signals in an effort to …
It’s no secret that Secret in Their Eyes is an English-language remake of 2010’s Best Foreign Film Oscar of the same name. Like it’s namesake, Secret relies on a series of intricate flashbacks, the narrative constantly, often confusingly jumping between 2002 and 2015 with 9/11 an obvious substitute for Argentina’s …
Julia Roberts as a battered wife. That doesn't account for the fat lips. (Collagen, one imagines.) And neither does it account for much else. Roberts, a shallow shimmering brook, shows little sign of psychological sediment, as she stages a daring escape from her Cape Cod ice palace, heads for the …
Marital disruptions and reconciliations in a "respectable" Southern family, thrashed out in dialogue that sounds as if you ought to be keeping tally on a scoreboard. Kyra Sedgwick is well cast as the sister of Julia Roberts (at least as far as the flat wide lips and creeping-vine tresses: no …
Extended hen party for six Suthunnuhs who either patronize or work at a hair parlor called Truvy's Beauty Spot -- that's the social link between them. One-liners are passed around the group like canapés, and each of the top-line actresses (Shirley MacLaine, Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, …
Extended hen party for six Suthunnuhs who either patronize or work at a hair parlor called Truvy's Beauty Spot -- that's the social link between them. One-liners are passed around the group like canapés, and each of the top-line actresses (Shirley MacLaine, Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, …
A real and common and fertile situation -- the battle between the Ex-Wife and the New Woman over the affections of two children of divorce -- but glossed and glamorized beyond all recognition. (In the case of the glowing cinematography of Donald McAlpine, not beyond all admiration.) Every day is …