Someone has to pay the hospital bill after a fall from the titular topiary sidelines Coumba’s (Dior Ka) older brother. Their father not only deems her time better spent doing her brother’s work than in a classroom, but also (in order to raise quick cash) arranges to marry off Coumba’s …
Looks like Santa left a Steadicam mount under the Duplass Bros. tree! What better way to celebrate than by bankrolling this tale of crossdressing hooker Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) on a Christmas Eve manhunt through the nether portion of W. Hollywood searching for the one pimp she thought would remain …
1990 in the disputed territory of the Republic of Abkhazia. A grandfatherly Estonian is forced to go from crate-builder to coffin-maker in this “can’t we all get along” anti-war parable that positions two wounded soldiers from opposing camps – a Chechen mercenary and his Georgian counterpart – in the home …
It’s not often one thinks of rabbis and their wives as amorous entities, but that’s the first thing you’ll notice when Moshe Yehuda (Jos Laniado) and his spouse Raquel (Judi Beecher) are introduced in mid-passionate embrace. (It's a family affair all around: Jos co-wrote the script with brother/co-star Claudio Laniado …
Last year’s pawn shop acquisition of Dark Blue was almost enough to call for a reevaluation of David Ayers’ screenplays. His violent professional friendships, and the profane musings that entail between passenger and driver never were my bag — better a twentieth viewing of Walter Hill’s (em>48 Hrs. than a …
Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins invite the cameras to join them for several of their regular afternoon teas as they reminisce about their more than fifty years of friendship — from their modest beginnings to their years of taking home awards by the carload — and …
The lessons on display in this captivating adult look back at an eruption of youth make it a must-see for parents of kids who think their generation cooked up teen angst. Using punk author and co-scripter John Savage’s best-seller, Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture, as a springboard, British filmmaker …
A Palestinian producer throws his regularly unemployed nephew Salam (the exceedingly low key Kais Nashif) a bone, in the form of a low-paying production assistant’s job on TV’s highest rated show, a nighttime soap set three months before the Six-Day War. All the dirty looks Salam scores from the head …
Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslager), an Evangelical Christian and father of two, was recently outed by his family. “You thought being a faggot would be easy?” asks his lover. “We’re not in Luxembourg.” Try Homophobiaville, a Guatemalan burg where everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’s a cliche that filmmaker Jayro Bustamante …
Director George Clooney hit a grand slam his first time at bat (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), then set the blandness bar high with Good Night, and Good Luck, and has gone down swinging ever since (The Monuments Men, The Ides of March). This steeped-in-sentimentality adaptation of newspaperman, novelist J.R. …
Ariel (Alan Sabbagh, Buenos Aires’ answer to Jonah Hill) quit believing the day his father Usher (Usher Barilka) chose the titular spot at a stranger’s minyan over a seat at his son’s grade-school pageant. Unless you count Eva (Julieta Zylberberg), the Orthodox and near-mute object of Ariel’s objectification, spirituality has …
A household of sagging career fishermen living on a paradisaical Sicilian island that doubles as a summer getaway for wealthy tourists come face-to-face with a well-intentioned, message-laden script. The set-up and introduction of the characters showed promise. Director Emanuele Crialese opens by elegantly casting a net over the audience — …
One of cinema's absolute anomalies and curiosities of celluloid is this "all-midget" western. Watching a bantam buckaroo tie off his Shetland pony and walk under the hitching post and swinging saloon doors is amusing the first three times. It takes about fifteen minutes for the novelty to wear thin. When …