Unless the entire cast suddenly found it hard to make their mortgage payments, file this one under “unnecessary sequels.” The passage of 23 years finds Begbie (Robert Carlyle) on the lam, Spud (Ewen Bremner) a suicidal junkie, and Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) managing a questionable extortion ring — when he’s …
It’s a testament to Tab Hunter’s popularity that just about every co-star he shared the bill with – including the reclusive likes of Clint Eastwood and Dolores Hart – agreed to appear in Jeffrey Schwarz’s absorbing documentary. His boy-next-door good looks helped to catapult the shy, California-raised teen to movie …
Better to sneak into another auditorium than pull up a seat at the loser table opposite these six dusty nerds. Director Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound, Rocket Science) skips the hors d'oeuvre — nothing can whet the appetite for what’s to follow — and for the main course, serves up the comedic …
Restrained tearjerker: restrained in that it doesn't work too hard at jerking tears (come what tears may). It works hard at other things, though. It thoroughly, for example, scouts out the people, activities, and amenities aboard a luxury Mediterranean cruise liner (the sightseeing stops are more perfunctory: the Roman Coliseum, …
Three couples within the Chan family decide to tie the knot. But the joy of being engaged starts to fade when their intricate relationships make everything harder.
A slumming decline from the bold, cutting intelligence that Errol Morris showed in The Thin Blue Line and other films. His documentary subject is Joyce McKinney, a former Wyoming beauty queen turned sex worker and minor celebrity. Her obsessive fling with a shocked Mormon missionary became tabloid fodder in Britain. …
Nineteenth-century Japanese costume piece, 1865 to be exact, examines the flutter and flap in a samurai regiment (pledged to maintain order and put down uprisings) upon the enlistment of a babyfaced eighteen-year-old with doll-like feminine locks and a buttonhole mouth. He soon has more suitors than he could beat off …
Murnau, in his final feature film, transports his romantic fatalism into Flaherty's domain, the South Seas and the genuine natives thereof. The predetermined "attitude" somewhat stifles the documentary interest, and the authenticity gets in the way of Murnau's natural interests. The conflict of interests creates some interest of its own.
The production banner over Gary Winick's little coming-of-age comedy -- Indigent (or InDigEnt), acronym for Independent Digital Entertainment -- is a commendable example of truth-in-labelling. Poor for sure. Needy indeed. An anemic, myopic image that gets ever blurrier with every inch of distance from the camera, and ever pastier with …
Tad is back for another adventure! What could possibly go wrong?
Big, ambitious, commercial combat film from South Korea: two brothers thrown in the path of the Communist invasion of 1950. An Asian Saving Private Ryan, right down to the shaky long-lens battle footage, but without the slickness: schmaltzy, gory, and crude. Directed by Kang Je-gyu.
Just awful story of arrested development mistaken for preserved youth. Clips of the real-life game of grownup tag between friends that served as inspiration here are shown at the end, and have the no-doubt unintended effect of revealing what is missing in director Jeff Tomsic’s take: joy, friendship, humanity, and …
Just awful story of arrested development mistaken for preserved youth. Clips of the real-life game of grownup tag between friends that served as inspiration here are shown at the end, and have the no-doubt unintended effect of revealing what is missing in director Jeff Tomsic’s take: joy, friendship, humanity, and …