When writer-director Mike Mills isn’t flashing oodles of perky technique and “stylish” doodads (drawings, meet-cutes, old news clips, vintage music), his talented cast inserts human value and charm into this tale of a nice, lonely guy (Ewan McGregor) who lost his suddenly gay, then dead dad (Christopher Plummer) and finds …
Writer-director Salim Nayar's tale of an idealistic Mexican Governor who aims at the Presidency, with a little help from the women in his life. In Spanish with English subtitles.
So you’re a wounded Irish Yank (Colin Farrell) who’s fled a Civil War battlefield, and you’re lucky enough to get taken in by the residents of a Southern girls’ school. Your charming blarney and their lonely desperation lead you to consider three romantic possibilities: stay on and help the exquisite …
Contemporary war story about a U.S. Navy flier downed in the demilitarized zone of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the posse of Serbs hot on his heels, and the rescue effort thwarted by a NATO busybody of divided loyalties. (Opportunity, there, to reprise the wistful Vietnam refrain about taking the gloves off and untying …
Masked members of a secret club look on at the ravishing of Marilyn Chambers by a flock of lesbians and a black man with the crotch cut out of his longjohns, and, for an encore, by four men on swings, coming at her from all points of the compass. The …
Mawkish, mopish tale of a country bumpkin who comes to the big city and lands a job as a bicycle delivery boy: "Think of yourselves as the carrier pigeons of today." Think of it, for your part, as the Bicycle Thief of today. Except it's Chinese instead of Italian; and …
What with well-intentioned films about bullying currently the rage, it stands to reason there must be at least one that doesn’t construct a bully pulpit of its own to hammer home its obvious points. This rare misstep from the otherwise dependable voice of humanist André Téchiné (Alice et Martin, Wild …
This should have been a bonus feature on a Sesame Street DVD. Knowledge gleaned: Kevin Clash is a blueblooded puppeteer in love with his calling and blessed with an ability to animate fleece with the mere twist of a knuckle. We’re told little about Clash’s private life, other than he’s …
Before Mr. T and Steven Seagal, there was Evel Knievel. In the span of seven years, the daredevil stunt cyclist became one of the most recognizable figures, action or otherwise, on the planet. Knievel’s was a life of constant reinvention, an inner-crusade of never-ending one-upmanship with but one goal in …
Robert De Niro unloads his gnarly, scowling, old-crank routine again as a self-deluded “genius,” sort of Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver as a nutty dirtball. His son (moon-eyed Paul Dano) dislikes him but helps him at a homeless shelter. Marginal in Paul Weitz’s moody, drifting film are Julianne Moore and …
Comedy about a son who discovers his father has a second family.
Robin Williams, in sad-clown mode, skips through history as a caveman, a Roman slave, a returning Crusader, a Portuguese shipwreck survivor, and a Manhattan slumlord. The segments do not amount to much individually, or add up to much collectively, though they all have their tender touches, each one more than …
The feature debut of music-video and television-ad director Spike Jonze concerns a sidewalk puppeteer (John Cusack, looking as scraggly as Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo), whose explicitly erotic production of Abelard and Heloise earns him repeated punches in the mouth, and whose wife populates their apartment with a diapered chimp and …
Annette Bening takes to the role of an aging diva of the London stage, ca. 1938, like a starving lioness to a raw steak. Her range of expression is most impressive (whether suffering the attentions of a young admirer in an elevator or rising to the challenge of an ingenue …
Maria, on the cusp of adulthood, stars in the cult classic "Last Tango in Paris." Unprepared, she's thrust into fame, becoming an iconic actress amidst glory and scandal. Directed by Jessica Palud, starring Anamaria Vartolomei, Céleste Brunnquell, and Giuseppe Maggio.