The most Hitchcockean director to surf the famous French New Wave of cinema, the literate, brilliant, now-gone Claude Chabrol provides a last masterwork in a blithely casual, rather Altman-like manner. The plot, a holiday ramble of murder suspects and erotic hooks in pretty Nimes, France, stars Gérard Depardieu as the …
If time were currency, would you hoard it for eternal life or make every day a risky spree of mortality? In the near-future of an L.A. shot with elegant noir streamlining by Roger Deakins and directed by Kiwi-Brit stylist Andrew Niccol (Gattaca), people live to 25, stop aging, and then …
Werner Herzog will go anywhere for film discovery, and this is one of his better documentaries. In the piney woods north of Houston, he found ugly crime scenes and in a prison two convicted killers who murdered for a joyride. One is a smiling sociopath who thinks lethal injection will …
Francois Cluzet’s resemblance to Dustin Hoffman continues, so does his subtle talent. As a rich, French quadriplegic, he is all sharp, suave nuances as a cocky new caregiver (Omar Sy) injects his limited existence with fun and warmth. Sy overplays dude-ness, but the two are amusing and touching together, and …
Britain’s greatest prime minister since Churchill is seen through a glass, darkly — the darkness of dementia closing in. Her bouffant crown of hair is gone, but flickering memories turn into brisk flashbacks of the glory years. Meryl Streep is quite touching as Margaret Thatcher in retirement and is a …
Gore and idiotic plotting from South Korean director Kim Ji-woon. A pregnant woman is butchered by a sexual psychotic, then the creep exchanges ambushes and sadistic shockers with a “special agent” who is (of course) the woman’s fiancé. Apart from Lee Mogae’s atmospheric imagery, this is simply a wallow. Humor: …
The Maldives — a nation of islands south of Sri Lanka that survived a long dictatorship and a terrible tsunami — is now sinking below the ocean rise caused by global warming. Doubt it? See the film. The film’s young, brave, short, handsome, and very bright President Mohamed Nasheed is …
The latest Jane Eyre movie is not an advance — despite fine settings, a haughty, soul-scarred Rochester portrayed by Michael Fassbender, and ace supporting figures (Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins). The story is scrambled by tricky time jumps and clumsily handled by director Cary Fukunaga. The main deficit is …
Under the stone-slab “classical” direction of Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio dutifully plays J. Edgar Hoover as an anal-retentive power freak and mama’s boy (Judi Dench is mom). Building the FBI, he strikes fierce poses but remains a weak, petty neurotic. Writer Dustin Lance Black (Milk) never digs very far, and …
David Gelb’s documentary about Jiro Ono, a sage master chef of sushi in Tokyo, has the quick art, fine detailing, and lucid skill that Jiro shows in his kitchen and when serving. Lucky are the diners, envious are we voyeurs. The sea life has gone to heaven.
Rowan Atkinson, the pipsqueak packet of comical nonsense, returns as Johnny, Britain’s Clouseau (Clueless?) in a James Bond mode. It’s silly beyond silly, but the deft star knows how to do sight gags, blithely uses spy devices such as the “voice-change travel lozenge,” and enunciates such funny lines as “Ambrose, …
Bright colors, ’toony graphics, abundant closeups — mostly of adorable redhead Judy (Jordana Beatty, soon to be filmed as fabled Eloise of the Plaza Hotel). She is like a typhoon sugar high, her kid brother is named Stink, and Aunt Opal (Heather Graham) is also juvenile. The ancestral muse is …
Pretty, lavishly educated Sabrina (Paula Patton) opts to marry the sexy, lower-born Jason (Laz Alonso) at her parents’ huge beach home. Her snooty mom (Angela Bassett) can’t stand the groom’s mother (Loretta Devine), a tough workin’ gal whose touchy roots pride blasts open old secrets. Mildly risqué jokes and snarks …
Doug Block’s touching, intrusive, but not creepily voyeuristic home-movie portrait of his daughter Lucy, now grown and ready for college. She resists his obsessive filming but is also complicit and a true star. Her mom is wan, envious, often wise, and the movie has an inviting coziness laced with smarts.
Another wonderful movie done with the brisk, alert, almost reportorial care of the Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Their approach is grave but not thudding. Thomas Doret is terrific as the skinny, willful lad who feels abandoned and hopes his bike will rejoin him with his father (Jérémie Renier, …