There’s nothing worse than an unfunny comedy. Eagle vs. Shark first brought Taika Waititi to our attention and from the start, the writer-director expressed little interest in rhythm, structure, and tone. Not much has changed. What was once the work of an enfant terrible now plays as terribly infantile as …
For too long now, Angelina Jolie has dedicated herself to two types of product: well-intentioned shit (Beyond Borders, A Mighty Heart) and shit (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Wanted, Salt). Those Who Wish Me Dead earned a plot in the turd graveyard. Jolie stars as Hannah Faber, a flask-swilling smoke jumper …
Credit Sean Hayes (Larry), Will Sasso (Curly), and especially Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe) for doing their homework. Their Xerography of the boys’ lowbrow antics perfectly captures the spirit and flavor of the shorts. Slap the Farrelly Bros. for bringing smooth continuity, no glaring dubbed-in dialogue, and a paucity of dummies, doubles, …
When it comes to establishing a basic comic book universe, writer-director Ben Falcone can’t even manage to get the small details right, things like establishing an unfeigned menace from the get-go. With all the talk of legions of “Miscreants” overtaking Chicago, we never see more than three or four super-villains …
Starting on the confined space of a fixed, unbroken four minute opening take of two half-asleep children being placed in the family station wagon, Lucia and her younger brother look on from the back seat as mom and dad do their best to talk around the real reason for the …
On the surface, another just-say-no-to-drugs fantasy as filtered through the eyes of children. A local drug cartel known as the Huascas will stop at nothing — including killing innocents — to advance their cause. Five children orphaned by their bullets band together to put an end to the bandidos and …
Did you hear the one about Samuel (Ed Asner), the Holocaust survivor who gave shelter to straight-off-the-farm Holocaust denier Casey (Margot Josefsohn)? She’s the homeless teen he found dozing in a Jewish cemetery, a black leather jacket with a swastika painted across the back acting as her blanket. The jacket …
The Webby Award Winning comedy team of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim rape a pasture filled with sacred cows in a film that can only be called vile on every count. As intentionally shocking and patently offensive as the material may be, nothing prepared me for the gruesome cinematography and …
Fictional account of a village in the West African nation of Mali overtaken by extreme jihadist law – no smoking, no music, playing football is punishable by 20 lashes, etc. – and the peaceful herder living with his family on its desert outskirts who must avenge the slaughter of his …
Teller directs a talkie while Penn - the other half of the comedy/magic duo - narrates and stars in this documentary account of inventor and video game designer Tim Jenison and the device he concocted to replicate the elusive technique that Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer devised to paint with light. …
The first film to shine a light inside a modern-day Bedlam, the Massachusetts State Hospital for the Criminally Insane — the sort of place that was once jokingly looked down upon as a “laughing academy” or “nuthouse.” It also marked documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s first crack at chronicling the brutalizing effects …
What would a film about Freud be without dream sequences and symbolism? Set in Vienna during the days leading up to World War II, both sorts of imagery occupy prime real estate in Nikolaus Leytner’s strikingly appointed coming-of-age drama. With money tight and the prospects of securing a new meal-ticket …
No extraneous pan down to an establishing exterior shot; we begin simply on action. After evicting an avaricious lawyer from his taxi, a near-mute cabbie (Parviz Parastui, Iran’s answer to Ben Gazzara) picks up a pregnant and battered fare (Soheila Golestani) en route to the hospital and once there convinces …
There is something stupid-hot about the thought of a monotone, glassy-eyed chick whose frozen kisser prohibits her from cracking a smile while having indiscriminate sex with an array of partners. This is precisely why audiences will want to skip this gross-out marathon and download a bunch of Sasha Grey porn. …