Why would a quartet of 20-year-old desperados (Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Jared Abrahamson, and Blake Jenner) choose to knock over a university’s special collections library? Try $12 million dollars in rare books, with only one old lady (Ann Dowd) guarding them. For every great documentary that’s been spun, there are …
So rattled was James Stern by the thought of anyone in their right mind not voting for Mrs. Clinton that he spent the six months before the election criss-crossing America trying to understand what Donald Trump’s supporters saw in him. Who was Stern’s target audience? Surely Democrats don’t want to …
A broke, disenchanted med student (Katharine Isabelle) answers an ad for a strip club, winds up freelancing as a surgeon for the mob, and quickly becomes a marketable handicrafter skilled in the art of body modification. The Canadian writing, directing team of twisted twins Jen and Sylvia Soska, aided by …
Mathieu Demy's Americano (which he wrote, directed, and stars in) is a loving tribute to his parents, divine cinematic beings Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy. Don't worry, though; even if you can't screen Lola, The Model Shop, and Jacquot de Nantes in advance, Americano stands on its own as an …
A trustworthy storyteller recognizes that the essence of fantasy relies less on a filmmaker’s potential to suspend disbelief and more on their ability to create a plausible universe within which to frame their work. Herschel Greenbaum (Seth Rogen) is a Russian-Jewish immigrant, transplanted to Brooklyn in 1919, where he worked …
Mildred Gillars, aka Axis Sally (Meadow Williams), was the Nazis’ answer to Tokyo Rose. Known throughout the world as the Berlin Babe and Hitler’s Girlfriend, the German-American radio personality was employed by the German Broadcasting Company to circulate Axis propaganda. During her trial in America, she stood second only to …
A purebred underdog with a dream rises from supermarket stock boy to the heights of fame and fortune in this inspirational sports biopic. Before entering the theatre, I couldn’t tell the difference between NFL hurler Kurt Warner (Zachary Levi) and legendary college football Pop Warner. Imagine my delight when the …
When the Lord said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” He wasn’t referring to Deb Callahan (Sienna Miller). If ever a character courted chastisement, it’s she. When her daughter turns up missing, Deb embarks on a hellish, decades-long search to find her whereabouts. Like mother, like daughter: both were …
So far, Michael Haneke has specialized in focusing his clinician’s eye on tests of morality that arise during life’s deeply unsettling transgressive moments. A film about losing one’s spouse to Alzheimer's seemed to be a logical progression. Selecting French acting legends Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva to star as the …
Two months behind in the rent, deflector of note Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier) uses everything from a glass of juice to the smoke alarm that almost beaned her landlady to distract from the subject at hand. Anaïs moves at a whirlwind pace, the camera following her as it would a boxer’s …
A widowed, racist, and all around mucho ungracious landlord (Michael Douglas) begrudgingly falls in love with an equally companionless tenant (Diane Keaton) best known for continually sabotaging her budding career as a chanteuse by working her dead husband’s aneurism into the between-song patter. It begins to curdle early on when …
“Is it better not to live than to live and suffer?” Don’tcha hate it when a character, in this case a scraggly Columbia University professor (Sam Waterston), breaks the ice by spelling out a film’s thesis? Suffer we do as a cast of top name performers (Glenn Close, Kristen Stewart, …
Glamorizing biopic of baby-faced thrill-killer Carlos Robledo Puch (Lorenzo Ferro) whom, after spending more than forty-six years in jail, is the longest-serving prisoner in the history of Argentina. His life in crime began as a “house cat,” a burglar without a gun. You’re heard of a meet cute? Director Luis …
It was supposed to be a three-week jaunt to Mars aboard a transport ship: a floating erector set outfitted with deluxe accommodations, 21 restaurants, and an attraction known as Mima, a soothing rest-for-the-weary club room that administers emotional tuneups to uneasy colonists. But a collision with an asteroid knocks the …
Films have previously depicted the plight of an individual in the wake of a terrorist bombing, but never a character with Down syndrome. After the real-life 1994 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires separates Anita (Alejandra Manzo) from her doting mother (Norma Aleandro), the developmentally disabled young woman …