Spongy satire divides its feeble forces between the Bush Administration (à clef) and the TV talent contest, American Idol, aligning the two targets when the mush-brained President agrees to appear as a guest judge on the season finale, a showdown pitting a "white-trash girl from Ohio" against an undercover Iraqi …
The remake of The Bad News Bears, minus the definite article, plugs in Billy Bob Thornton in the Walter Matthau part, a former professional baseball player and current full-time drunk, enlisted to coach a team of Little League rejects (now sponsored not by Chico's Bail Bonds, though that establishment gets …
The name of the movie is the name of a Mexican resort hotel-cum-hospital where half a dozen gringas await their turn to adopt native newborns; more bluntly, where the haves take from the have-nots. Or still more bluntly, where the Left-leaning John Sayles can show off some of his right …
Jon Hamm stars as the roguishly charming and endlessly troublesome Fletch, who becomes the prime suspect in a murder case while searching for a stolen art collection. The only way to prove his innocence? Find out which of the long list of suspects is the culprit - from the eccentric …
A pleasant outing in a Buick station wagon, comfortably seating five: Mom, Dad, Sis and her boyfriend, and the suspicious wife who, on the day after Thanksgiving, has discovered a cryptic note to her husband, quoting an Andrew Marvell love poem and signed "Sandy." What is the meaning of this? …
A pleasant outing in a Buick station wagon, comfortably seating five: Mom, Dad, Sis and her boyfriend, and the suspicious wife who, on the day after Thanksgiving, has discovered a cryptic note to her husband, quoting an Andrew Marvell love poem and signed "Sandy." What is the meaning of this? …
Writer and director Karen Moncrieff, of Blue Car, goes at the title figure -- not just dead, but brutally murdered -- by way of five separate storylines, one after another, some more tangential than others, all populated by horridly stunted humans. Structurally intriguing, but grindingly grim and condescending. With Toni …
Another tasteful collaboration of director Barbet Schroeder and his faithful photographer Luciano Tovoli, working chiefly in cool blues and battleship grays, with a subtle spreading of shadows. The taste ends there. The project -- the only known bone-marrow match for a policeman's leukemic son is an incarcerated psychopath -- is …
A pretentious mess from Tony Kaye (American History X). Lean, saint-faced Adrien Brody plays a school teacher rightly cynical about the dismal system. He compounds the daily crisis by encouraging the fantasies of a neurotic girl and nurturing a nymphetic drug whore (Sami Gayle). The story is alarmed gibberish, providing …
Set in medieval England, Anne and her domineering mother-in-law Morwen struggle to survive on the outskirts of society. But when a man from Anne’s past returns from war, a curse begins to take shape through a mysterious knight and threatens to destroy them all. Starring Sophie Turner and Kit Harington …
Matrimonial, as opposed to occupational, 9 to 5, with three high-wattage actresses exacting rah-rah revenge on the husbands who dumped them for younger women. The tripartite story -- an old, old, old story, too -- requires some laborious exposition and development. Each of the stars -- Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, …
Matrimonial, as opposed to occupational, 9 to 5, with three high-wattage actresses exacting rah-rah revenge on the husbands who dumped them for younger women. The tripartite story -- an old, old, old story, too -- requires some laborious exposition and development. Each of the stars -- Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, …
The Absent-Minded Professor remade to catch up with the decline of Western civilization: computer-cartoon special effects; a Star Wars-type sentimental robot; two Home Alone-type bungling goons; Robin Williams; etc. With Marcia Gay Harden, Christopher McDonald, Clancy Brown, Ted Levine; directed by Les Mayfield.
A modern dress mutation of High Noon with a pro-life message substituting for the “real time” western’s obvious allegory against blacklisting. Instead of a cowardly Marshal soliciting the aid of local townsfolk (including his girlfriend!), storming granny Lily Tomlin races against the clock, going hat-in-hand to various guest stars (including …
A tall tale about a tall tale, the bogus "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes, peddled by Clifford Irving to McGraw-Hill in the early Seventies. Richard Gere, as the hungering writer ("The middle of my life is at hand. I don't have a couch"), has some funny bits imitating Hughes's speech …