Jerzy Kosinski's adaptation of his own novel about a retarded gardener named Chance, whose only acquaintance with the world beyond his garden has been through his constant exposure to TV, and who is suddenly turned out into that world when his benevolent employer passes on. There would seem to be …
Another week, another round of celebrity pantomimes, this time a biopic prime for Amazon, not theatres. Lucy (Nicole Kidman) loved logic, a trait that clearly did not find a home in writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s final cut. The pampered superstar couldn’t find a washing machine in a Maytag showroom. What would …
Twisted, tangled, snarled zaniness around a behind-the-times video store, facing foreclosure, in Passaic, N.J. An habitué of the place (Jack Black, at his most demonically possessed) unwittingly erases the entire stock after he becomes “magnetized” while attempting to sabotage the next-door power plant: “I didn’t sabotage the power plant; the …
No sooner does a full-color drone’s-eye-view offer up a glimpse of Belfast today, than we’re whisked over a fence and 50 years into a monochromatic past. For a city beset by civil war, it’s amazing how squeaky clean the streets look, as if set designers spent their evenings polishing each …
Voluble but otherwise artless provocation on the subject of a Jewish neo-Nazi. Ryan Gosling looks as if he is auditioning to play Timothy McVeigh, and acts as if he was studying De Niro's Travis Bickle and Max Cady in preparation. With Summer Phoenix, Billy Zane, Theresa Russell; written and directed …
An investigator sends his underage junkie niece undercover, and her death kicks off a search for the hellborn Mr. Lee, a drug kingpin whose identity remains a tightly guarded mystery. How does one say “Stop remaking great movies!” in Korean? Because it seems our friends to the South have become …
Occultist moonshine, centered around the imported-from-Cuba underground religion of santeria. There is an authentic element of anthropology and cultural relativism ("Name me one religion in which atrocities have not been committed in the name of God"), and more than the usual dosage of psychology, human interest, and "fine acting." That …
Rather bland for Cajun fare, with toned down and easily intelligible accents and a rudimentary dramatic conflict (ca. 1859) along ranchers-vs.-farmers lines. An independent production of modest aims and modest means and commensurately modest achievement. Robert Duvall, credited for unspecified work as Creative Consultant, appears briefly on screen to read …
How’s this for a genuinely frightening premise: a faceless corporation outfits 80 of its employees with explosive implant tracers, confines them to a Colombian office building, and obliges the staff to participate in a game of last man or woman standing. All director Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) and screenwriter James …
Restored version of the 1973 animated film from Japan's Mushi Production studio that tells the story of a peasant girl who gets raped on her wedding night by the local baron and eventually aligns herself with dark forces to exact her revenge. Directed and co-written by Elichi Yamamoto. In Japanese …
The latest boxing film from... wait a second. This isn't a movie!
It's surfing at windmills in what's being described as surfer, artist, and environmentalist Chris Del Moro's "Don Quixotian" quest back to his Italian homeland. Jason Baffa directs.