How to gussy up your completely conventional story of boy-meets-girl, boy-marries-girl, boy-gets-famous, boy-moves-on? Well, you could start by chopping up the timeline so that we start with the heartbroken ending, cut to the ecstatic beginning, slam to a curdled late-period fight, and work from there. Oh, and you could also …
Director and co-writer Richard Linklater (Everybody Wants Some!) takes up the story of Larry (Steve Carell), a recently widowed Vietnam veteran who journeys to collect the body of his son after the boy dies serving as a Marine in Iraq. For support, Larry turns to a couple of fellow vets: …
Weary screen warrior Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to Hollywood in a film about a cop who got old and left LA for an Arizona border town. But this being Arnold, trouble finds him. And this being Arizona, it's Mexican trouble (though — ha ha — this time it's a Mexican who …
Director and co-writer Catherine Breillat’s French twist on the Danish film Queen of Hearts has got your cycle of abuse right here. We open on the face of a trembling teen as she recounts her sexual history to Anne (a handsome and supremely put-together Léa Drucker), the lawyer who will …
Surprising Vin Diesel vehicle: first, for the initial switcheroo from supernatural action-adventure to supernatural whodunit; second, for a sturdily built storyline; third, for a somewhat lively and lighthearted turn from its often somnolent star. (Those widened, puppy-dog eyes!) Sadly, the more expected elements do much to dull the pleasure of …
On the threshold of its 25th anniversary concert, the renowned Fugue String Quartet finds itself on the verge of dissolution, as its members begin to bow under the tension between personal goods and the good of the group (namely, the music that it makes). If the script is occasionally indulgent …
Southern-fried Godfather: diminutive kid brother (Shia LaBeouf, who seems to be trying a little too hard) wants in on the family moonshine business, but his godlike (read: unkillable) elders (a more impressive Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke) will hear none of it. We even get a botched assassination attempt and …
Patricia Clarkson (Cairo Time) stars as a recently ditched book critic bumping up against the fact that she never learned to drive. (She had a husband for that.) Ben Kingsley (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb) co-stars as a recently arrived Sikh driving instructor/taxi driver who never learned …
A Rapture story with its heart in the right place: that is, in sympathy with the poor souls who are left to wonder what sort of God just snatches away their kids, their parents, and their airplane pilots. According to the tagline, The End of the World Has Only Just …
How do you make a boring film about gangster twins in ‘60s London, one of whom is a violent, paranoid schizophrenic homosexual, and both of whom are played by Tom Hardy? Easy: neglect the violent, paranoid schizophrenic homosexual and play up the other one’s girlfriend. While you’re at it, give …
Renny Harlin (remember The Long Kiss Goodnight?) spills his director's paintbox all over a perfectly serviceable B movie, leaving almost no scene unstained. Wash it out, saturate it, amp it up, slow it down, and above all, have something drifting through the air — ashes, rose petals, dandelion seeds, whatever. …
At one point in David Yates’ lush depiction of Lord John Greystoke’s reluctant return to Africa, plucky damsel in distress Jane (Margot Robbie) taunts wicked schemer Leon (Christoph Waltz) by telling him that his moustache is a trifle lower on one side than the other. But the really remarkable thing …
There’s some powerful stuff about modern soldiering and military culture in Greg Barker’s brief documentary on the first American soldiers to enter Afghanistan after 9/11. As a reporter, Barker is the right man for the job: he manages the special kind of rapport you’d need to get an Army Ranger …
Director Chris McCay’s whirlwind romp through The Dark Knight’s universe keeps things kid-friendly by operating from the notion that Batman is a seven-year-old boy, his development arrested by the traumatic experience of losing his parents at a tender age. He doesn’t want to share: he regards his greatest enemy as …
LEGO, which has insinuated itself into movie franchise after movie franchise via the video game backdoor, now makes its move to subsume them all into a big-screen pop-culture juggernaut. They even took over the Bible! Resistance is futile.