Fueled by implausibility, and for a good portion of the ride much better for it, Bong-Joon Ho’s (The Host) Snowpiercer posits a non-stop, earth-encircling train containing the microcosmic survivors of a society killed off by a global warming-induced deep freeze. Much of the ingenuity is housed in the bullet-train-paced first …
Keith (McCaul Lombard) is a con serving out the last year of his drug-related sentence under house arrest. Finally relieved of his ankle monitor (and under the steadying gaze of cinematographer Shabier Kirchner’s smooth-as-ice camerawork) he takes a liberating jog through the streets of Baltimore, savoring his freedom for a …
The Villages in Florida, America’s largest retirement community, is the setting for Lance Oppenheim’s first feature-length documentary. Tucked a safe distance away from the woebegone slums of nearby Orlando, it’s an age-restricted elephant’s graveyard: “God’s waiting room,” where comfortable retirees flock to its antiseptic subdivisions with the same kind of …
An agitprop-spewing band of chain-smoking French teenage rebels-without-a-clue spend the summer of 1970 hurling molotovs and printing leaflets to gear up for a revolution that never happened. They were of an age and know-it-all mindset which believed that all of societies’ problems could be summed up and solved over a …
Linh Phung (Isaac), star of a traveling opera company, helps Dung (Lien Binh Phat), a violent mob enforcer, come to terms with his feelings of abandonment (and sexuality) in Leon Le’s strikingly photographed musical melodrama. In a sense, Dung’s roots are in Vietnamese folk opera. The Saigon theatre he grew …
Peru 1988. From a distance, we observe Georgina (Pamela Mendoza), husband-to-be Leo (Lucio Rojas), and their wedding cortege making its way to the church. They’re positioned at the bottom of the concrete landscape, as if the weight of Lima rested on their backs: freshly minted filmmaker Melina León proves herself …
Intended to sell corporations on the virtues of sustainability, this green-energy promotional video (signed by a quartet of green directors) was erroneously assigned a theatrical release. There will be no star rating. Two attempts to make it through this tree-hugging infomercial and both times I passed out. If you happen …
The whitespeak-from-black-lips and coitus-interruptus garage door gags having been tipped in the trailer, precious little is left to laugh at in this edition of amateur night at the multiplex. Telemarketers as targets from which satire flows eternal were spigotted about the same time as mall cops, and that’s not all …
The accidental and premature death of Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) on the biggest day of his life lands him in limbo, where he’s compelled to plead his case at a corporate, other-worldly way station. Sound familiar? It’s the premise for Albert Brooks’ fantasy comedy Defending Your Life. In this …
The accidental and premature death of Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) on the biggest day of his life lands him in limbo, where he’s compelled to plead his case at a corporate, other-worldly way station. Sound familiar? It’s the premise for Albert Brooks’ fantasy comedy Defending Your Life. In this …
A faith-based made-for-TV biopic that somehow found its way to the big screen. Teen-surfer Bethany Hamilton made headlines after a shark relieved her of an arm. AnnaSophia Robb looks the part, but the young actress doesn’t bring much in the way of urgency to the role of a traumatized teenager. …
Does anyone remember It’s All Gone Pete Tong, Michael Dowse’s hilariously uplifting tale of real-life club DJ Frankie Wilde’s struggle against progressive hearing loss? The Academy didn’t, and perhaps it’s better that way, seeing how the staid voting members never have taken a shine to tragicomedy. Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a …
When asked why he didn’t direct Space Jam, a look akin to vaping rancid butter crossed Joe Dante’s (Looney Tunes Back in Action) face. Then he answered my question with a question of his own: “Have you seen it?” It’s with more than a little outrage that I report that …
An instant addition to any quality top ten list of favorite Christmas movies, the latest familial Grand Guignol to hatch from the superior mind of Pablo Larrain follows Jackie in the director’s “tortured royalty” trilogy. (A capper is in the works, the subject as yet unnamed. How ‘bout Dolores Hope?) …