Slow and "heavy" Americanization of an egghead detective novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Like a lot of actors-turned-director, Sean Penn is disposed to dump an emotional load on his actors and watch them stagger around under it awhile. Most of them -- Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Clarkson, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave, …

That snobbery is a two-way street, that it is just as pernicious either way, that even the occasional "richie" is blessed with a speck of decency — these are worthwhile lessons. But the assumption in John Hughes's screenplay is that any lesson worth teaching doesn't need to be taught well. …

The first computer-animated feature from Industrial Light & Magic, centered around a chameleon who finds his identity as a “spaghetti Western” sheriff. Said to be hip about the genre roots. With the voices of Johnny Depp, Alfred Molina, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Harry Dean Stanton, Ned Beatty.

A "different" movie comedy, with a real feel for life at the fringe (a public bus is bound for someplace called Edge City), where everybody subsists on only generic brands (a tin can labelled "Food" and a pop-top labelled "Drink") and says "Fuck you" a lot. An automobile repossession outfit …

No one could accuse director Nick Cassavetes of reluctance to trade on his father's name. His first film, Unhook the Stars, was a vehicle for John's widow and frequent star, Gena Rowlands. And this, his second, comes from an unproduced screenplay by John (with a small part for Gena as …

As if he didn't have enough trouble already with his boss and his landlady and his ex-wife, a quasi-underground cartoonist in present-day L.A. is menaced out of the blue by a stranger in shades: "Where is it, Mr. Drood?" Where's what? "He gave you something." He who? But this isn't …

A director (Pat O'Connor) who has shown an inclination but no great aptitude for "sensitive" psychological studies (Cal, A Month in the Country) is not apt to suddenly seem just the right man for transatlantic satire, in the choppy backwash of Evelyn Waugh, descending gradually into knockabout farce. And sure …

Deterministic crime movie, remarkably but not totally dour, honest, and life-sized. Dust-bin Hoffman, who sports mangy sideburns and mustache, blends very well into a nicely detailed lower-middle-class shabbiness. The lugubrious lighting poured over everything is a touch much, perhaps. And at the center of the movie is an ill-defined romance …

For his first narrative feature since the unforgettable Il Divo, director Paolo Sorrentino once again turns out an epic account of a passive subject. This tack worked when used to illustrate the life of a nondescript, hunchbacked dwarf who quietly ran roughshod over Italian politics for almost 50 years. The …

The downside of an artist attracting a crowd is that he is tempted to start playing to it, and pretty soon his Unique Creative Vision gets broadened and coarsened and cheapened, and David Lynch starts looking like John Waters -- or making John Waters look like R.W. Fassbinder. Fitted in …

John Huston was arguably not the wisest choice to direct the Flannery O'Connor novel about a street-corner religious fanatic in the rural South. Seemingly a bit bone-weary, as in Fat City, he takes the most convenient shortcut to the most conventional notion: still photos of rubber tires and such behind …