Not bad, for an unnecessary remake. I’ll gladly make do with a shortening of the misogynistic revenge-rape in exchange for a more cuddly relationship between the cop (Daniel Craig) and the girl who fell face first into a tackle box (Rooney Mara). The smooth lateral pans and flat, shiny surfaces …
The ancestral muse for this is choreographic-editing wizard Busby Berkeley. There seem to be about two million shots, each designed to arrive in perfect sync as a snap, pop, and crackle of Gleek delirium. The big-cult TV show spawned a touring concert event, filmed in 3-D at New Jersey venues. …
A Shakespearean herald reading the play’s old prologue is comically yanked at the beginning. So much for the literary roots, and despite mostly British accents, the wit leans to “Adios, loser,” “Let’s kick some grass,” and a “pansy” joke as garden gnomes fill out plastic remnants of the Romeo and …
The title tells it all. The film involves a group of 30-something, mid-level professionals who have been friends since high school and throw epic parties every summer at a beach house in the Hamptons. When the estate goes up for sale, the group is determined to throw the wildest party …
Pamela Yates returns to bloody Guatemala, where her When the Mountains Tremble (1984) helped alert the world to military persecution, even genocide. Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchú rose to a fame that led to her Nobel Prize. Yates revisits the endless struggle — a racial and class conflict — and her …
Pay attention to the opening scene, people: a boy who plays with superhero dolls is chewed out by his dad in the world’s most opulent newspaper-editor’s office. Because, as the film’s last scene hammers home with a clang, that’s what this movie is about: a schlubby, bighearted underachiever coming to …
Sammi Hanratty, up from Pringles commercials, stars as the spoiled teen girl whose move from Philadelphia to the country and wises up. Directed by Peter Skillman Odione; with Aidan Quinn and Brooke Shields.
Ryan Reynolds’s neat ’n’ tidy physique, plunked down into a garish and untidy superhero movie. The story makes much of the character’s mythological underpinnings, then chucks ’em for the sake of Daddy issues and growing up. Oh, and there’s a girl. But the Big Bad Thing that threatens the universe …
Griff (Ryan Kwanten) is a bullied Australian nerd who finds relief as a suited superhero in dark alleys. He meets a brainy nerdette (Maeve Dermody), and their romance comes into focus as they work on becoming invisible. The stars are okay, the effects are quaint, but writer-director Leon Ford depends …
Brendan Gleeson dominates as Irish country cop Gerry, a smart slob who loves whoring, drinking, shopping guns, and making funny quips. Like most of the Gaelic rustics, he is hip to American films and music, and in a mildly racist way, Gerry welcomes the stiffly formal FBI man — played …
Esai Morales is very good as the hard macho con paroled home to a Puerto Rican section of the Bronx. Harmony Santana, a transgender teen actor, is beyond very good as the son whose vulnerable hunger to become a woman infuriates the father. An excellent cast, including Judy Reyes as …
Eva is a dreamer in a world of assimilated perspectives. Her workday consists of sewing in a factory, but her ambition is to become a famous fashion designer. Enter Jorge, a well-to-do charmer whose world-weary aesthetic provides Eva with just the escape she needs. Unfortunately, the performances do not live …
Director Todd Phillips remakes his hit comedy The Hangover — a story about bachelor-party boys who wake up with an absent friend and no memory of the night before — only this time it’s bigger, louder, dumber, and completely joyless. (Original touch: a cute little monkey who smokes, deals drugs, …