D-minus. The Pee-Wee pucksters, having overcome the odds to win the local championship, are ready to take on the world and overcome steeper odds, at the Junior Goodwill Games in L.A. The villain: Iceland. Iceland? Yes, Iceland. (A bold move, inviting protests from the Icelander Anti-Defamation League and virtually writing …
An expatriate Irish playwright hashes things over with the ghost of his father -- literally, and in stiltedly literary language: "You spent your life sitting on brambles, and wouldn't move for fear someone would take your seat," etc. He also gets to have a generation-gap spat with "himself" -- though …
Spike Lee’s biggest accomplishment was assembling a cast of seasoned Hollywood veterans to bring to life his saga of four African-American survivors of the Vietnam War (and son) who reunite in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), ostensibly to track down the remains of their squadron leader, Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman). …
There's an intriguing idea here, and director Gary David Goldberg never gets anywhere near it. The idea is identified (after apparently one diagnostic session with a psychiatrist) as "successful schizophrenia." A seventy-eight-year-old retiree, almost paralyzed by age and unable to make the least little move without the sharp command of …
Hard to judge what’s more exasperating, the undependable divorced dad of two visiting sons or the shaky camera and sandpapery image. Ronald Bronstein is at least very convincing as the constant fuck-up. With Sage Ranaldo, Frey Ranaldo, Eleanore Hendricks, and Abel Ferrara; written and directed by Josh and Benny Safdie.
Dirk Bogarde's return to the screen after a twelve-year absence -- a happy event in itself, and it injects just that degree of initial interest and lingering excitement lacking in the average Bertrand Tavernier movie. Our first sight of him hardly constitutes a grand re-entrance: flat on his back in …
Can a movie with this title possibly have a sense of humor? Well, not much of a one: but not everyone involved can be kept totally in line, and there are flashes of humorousness -- or at least humannness -- from Beau Bridges, Tess Harper, Patrika Darbo, and Molly McClure …
Will Ferrell plays his standard issue wide-eyed naif, an amiable simp who can find the good in just about any situation, save one: the sudden reappearance of his wife’s guilt-stricken greaser ex (Mark Wahlberg), eager to reheat a dead romantic soufflé. Two moments stand out in this battle between alpha …
Mark Wahlberg recently apologized to God for appearing in Boogie Nights. Satan’s currently warming up a tier in hell for him and the funky bunch of willing participants in this crime against cinema. As in the first installment, there’s a superbly executed avalanche gag, this one involving a snow-blower consuming …
Adding to an already varied and impressive documentary portfolio which ranges from the castles along the Loire River to Cuba to the Vietnam War to the Black Panthers, Agnes Varda tries her hand here at a "neighborhood movie" (wider in scope than a "home movie," but narrower than her other …
Vera Chytilova's unbridled experiment in color, collage, cartoonish sound effects, and changeable image quality. For all the sensory excitements, in this story of small-scale devastations committed by two amoral girlfriends (in a world, we are reminded, prone to devastations on a mass scale), it should not escape notice that the …
Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon and Brooke Shields star in this tale of an eleven year-old girl's unconventional, yet deeply loving relationship with her mother and what happens when said relationship is harshly broken.
A poetic ReVision of the award-winning Dalai Lama Renaissance.