The titular character's place in the scheme of things is an interesting one: a lead character doomed to live in the shadow of a supporting character; more exactly, an impoverished young pianist selected as accompanist, and "maybe also artistic advisor," to an illustrious Russian diva in Nazi-occupied France. Besides accompanist, …
Two-and-a-quarter-hour promo for the Beatles without ever mentioning them by name. A generous, even overgenerous sampler of their songs (thirty-three of them, by the count in the press notes, leaving aside the numberless others that are quoted from or alluded to) has been re-recorded, or "covered" as they say in …
A power surge on an International Space Antenna nearly knocks career astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt, in his earnest, Robert Redford mode) out of commission. SPOILER ALERT: It turns out that Ad Astra, Latin for “to the stars,” is Apocalypse Now in space — there’s a lot of Capt. Willard …
America fell in love with Uncle Fester’s nipples. Why else would a topless Fester be there to greet audiences at the outset, the first big guffaw in a rapidly narrowing field of laughs? The press release promised “many new kooky characters” before asking “What could possibly go wrong?” New kooky …
A reasonably engrossing documentary portrait of behavioral researcher Victor DeNoble, the first person to blow the whistle on the American tobacco industry’s efforts to manufacture a “maximally addictive” cigarette. Kudos to director Charles Evans Jr. for shying away from scare-tactic closeups of diseased lungs, but his reliance on rudimentary animation …
Notwithstanding some larger deficiencies, the quality of individual gags is reasonably high -- high-spirited, high-strung. There are several larger deficiencies to withstand, however. Gene Wilder, who seems understandably hard-pressed by the multiple chores of acting, writing, and directing, tends to chase after the closest laugh; and the plot and characters, …
Another animated mouse from the Disney studio, in fact a whole society of them underneath (and a perfect mirror image of) the London of 1897. They have their own mouse queen beneath Buckingham Palace, who coincidentally happens to be celebrating her own Diamond Jubilee. And they have a portly medical …
A legacy-of-abuse tragedy with heavy psychologizing and moralizing -- altogether as chilly as its upstate New Hampshire locale during deer-hunting season. It showcases ferociously fine work from Nick Nolte as the figurehead policeman of a sleepy small town, not unlike the Stallone character in Copland, who convinces himself that a …
An abnormally hairy, scratching, apish Bogart and a normally haughty Hepburn appear to thrive and purr and scarcely conceal their delight amid the purported annoyances of the Congo wilderness, of the First World War, and of each other's company. James Agee's script seems somewhat trampled-on, as though it were regarded …
Living most of his adult life in Chicago, Franek (Ireneusz Czop), developed a fondness for throwing the word “Yid” around. But upon returning to Poland after a 20 year absence, Franek discovers the town he grew up in harbors a bulwark of genuine, old-school anti-Semites. Schindler’s Light. Writer-director Wladyslaw Pasikowski’s …
Writer-director Jill Soloway digs into the psyche of the happy homemaker's shadow self, the miserable mommy. (When all your needs are met, that's when you notice you're unhappy.) Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) is uninterested in her child, unmoved by her husband, and unconsoled by her friends. On a joyless lark, she …
“New friends at my age mean one thing — more funerals,” scoffs Yoshiko (Kirin Kiki), the matriarch of the Shinoda family, as she attempts to work past the recent death of her husband. If American filmmakers could write characters half as observant and compelling as Hirokazu Koreeda, you’d never again …
A fair-haired Danish do-gooder at an insolvent Bombay orphanage is summoned against his will to his native Copenhagen on a hat-in-hand fundraising mission, and upon arrival is summoned additionally to the wedding of Mr. Moneybags's daughter. To our surprise (and who else's?), Mrs. Moneybags turns out to be an old …
Writer-director Kim Jee-woon brings John Le Carré-style espionage to the world of Korea's struggle for independence from Japan in the '30s. Meaning: the deepest convictions of the human heart are your only hope for surviving a world where deceit and betrayal are not only common but expected, but it's a …