Time-travel brain-twister credited as "inspired [but not very] by the film La Jetée -- the 1962 experimental short composed exclusively of still shots, save one. There are some provocative or at least irksome notions in the script by David and Janet Peoples (Mr. and Mrs.), chief among them the implicit …
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 …
Rather tardy anti-Western (at least a couple of decades out of style), with a decidedly unheroic Jesse James, brutal, bullying, backshooting, paranoid, and suicidal, and a slightly more sympathetic Bob Ford, conflicted in his feelings toward the legendary outlaw, idolizing yet inferior, intimidated, frightened, resentful, envious. There are some gripping …
Communication problems the world over. An American tourist is struck by rifle fire in Morocco, arousing erroneous worries of terrorism. An illegal-alien nanny drags along the two towheads in her care to a Mexican wedding, and runs afoul of the Border Patrol on their return. And a horny pantyless deaf-mute …
The term “I don’t understand” is spoken numerous times throughout the film. That’s not counting audience members. Come equipped with a sophisticated understanding of the banking collapse of the mid-2000s and you’ll be hanging on every word. For those who invest in cinema and wouldn’t know a housing bubble from …
Brad Pitt hinted recently that he may be making an early exit from acting. If that means no more Bullet Trains — easily the wormiest script he’s hitched his star to since Mr. and Mrs. Smith — I’ll hold the door for him. Pitt stars as a career hitman suddenly …
The Coen brothers revisit their favored stupidity theme: Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski (that one above all), O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the secondhand Ladykillers, at least the Llewellyn Moss protagonist in No Country for Old Men. Back to the well once more. The placement of this …
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Pitt star as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Kidding. Mostly. Anyway, there's a troubled marriage on the French Coast. Written and directed by Ms. Jolie Pitt.
An adaptation of the "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris, TV game-show producer -- The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, et al. -- and moonlighting CIA hit man. Says him. We meet the protagonist (played with maximum smarm and supreme sleaze by Sam Rockwell) holed up, Manson-haired, naked, close to catatonic, …
A Roger Rabbit for the underground-comics consumer. In other words, the graphics are uniformly ugly, except for maybe the Vargas Girl called Holli Would, who is no worse than cocktail-napkin conventional. And the premise is a thorough mess: "interworld travel" between Las Vegas, Nevada, and the comic-book metropolis which an …
"I've seen it all, counselor," intones worldly-wise dealmaker Brad Pitt. "It's all shit." This is very close to the point of The Counselor. Pretty shit, pricey shit, exciting shit, lovable shit, even enduring shit - but still shit. The counterargument, to the extent that one is offered, is so brief …
The central conceit, and little else, has been retained from an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name: a protagonist who ages in reverse. (The story of course was written and titled before the soundalike name of Benjamin Britten came to fame, and as long as they were …
An IRA lad (Brad Pitt) is set up with room and board at the suburban New York address of an honest Irish cop (Harrison Ford) -- "safest place in the city" -- while he awaits a shipment of Stinger missiles to combat Brit helicopters back in Belfast. The ashen color …