When Jake Met Lainey, only instead of a simulated orgasm in a restaurant, we get a tutorial in feminine masturbation conducted via glass jar. Writer-director Leslye Headland's (Bachelorette) explicit, rather clinical pathology of modern romance begins with a mutual college-days loss of virginity between leads Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie, …
Adam Pally and Sarah Burns play a couple of grown-up nerds who decide they’d like to get busy, and adopt bold new personas to help make that happen. (A leather jacket for him, garish makeup for her, plenty of booze for both.) The results are awkward and cringeworthy and bizarrely …
Oliver Stone serves up a sort of companion piece to Laura Poitras’s excellent documentary Citizenfour, which records whistleblower Edward Snowden’s hidden vigil in a Hong Kong hotel as his exposure of secret and illegal U.S. government surveillance becomes headline news. But it isn’t much of a companion: where the documentary …
There are, to date, 11 crime novels from Norwegian author Jo Nesbø featuring detective Harry Hole, novels which have sold many millions of copies worldwide. So that takes a little bit of the mystery out of how this overstuffed, undercooked thriller landed talented director Tomas Alfredson (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), …
There was, of course, no need for this story to be told. Some might even argue that there was a need for it not to be told, so that some shred of mystery could be preserved in a franchise that devoted three films to unveiling a Dark Father as a …
With the (temporary?) shuttering of Studio Ghibli, the Animation Muse had to go somewhere, and since Pixar seems content to dig up Woody & Co. for Toy Story 4, why not stop by the Cartoon Saloon? Director Tomm Moore follows The Secret of Kells with a visually sumptuous take on …
File under: reserved but not resigned. Writer-director Chloé Zhao tells a simple story: young man dreams of running away to a better life somewhere else, but the best laid plans etc., because life is already happening right here. Happily, she tells it clean and straight, and so calls to mind …
Scowly Roman Governor Pontius Pilate just wants to oversee Jerusalem without any fuss from the Jewish rabble. Politic High Priest Caiaphas just wants to host the Passover crowds without anyone sparking a riot/crackdown. And handsome Messiah Jesus? He just wants to change the world, one miracle at a time. (The …
Right up until the end, director and co-writer László Nemes’ tale of Auschwitz’s prisoner-janitors is a riveting, fascinating account of one man’s struggle, in the face of terrible suffering, to salvage human dignity through a single act of religious piety. (Not that it’s ever stated so prosaically, or stated at …
In telling the story of a “room tuner,” director and co-writer Michael Tyburski keeps things, fittingly enough, quiet. Even its most impassioned moments avoid the raised voice and, with one sad and telling exception, the dramatic gesture. Or perhaps “muted” is a better word, given the emotions that roil beneath …
A pleasant surprise, even if it takes an unpleasant journey. (Hence the title: if North is up on a map, South is down, down, down.) The look and feel are that of an ‘80s throwback horror show, from the ominous synth to the (mostly) practical effects to the ragged AM …
Rocky III's rebuilding-the-champ drama meets Cinderella Man's Daddy struggles, with a dash of The Fighter's neighborhood grit and some Eminem on the soundtrack for the beefcake training montage. A cut Jake Gyllenhaal (so, so good in last year's Nightcrawler) does a lot of quality mush-mouthed mumbling as a punched-up boxer …
President Obama’s fans and haters alike will find something to enjoy in this slightly stilted yet oddly fascinating account of the Harvard law student’s (Parker Sawyers) first date with Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter), the woman who would eventually become his wife. The visuals are pure hagiography: Chicago appears mostly as …
Charismatic youngster Miles Teller stars in yet another substance abuse pic. In Project X, he played Miles Teller (!), college kid chasing high school skirt while getting wasted at a house party. In 21 & Over, he played a college dropout on a quest to get his old high school …