The pounding hooves that whisk us through the pre-credit montage recall the manner of storytelling audiences lapped up throughout the ‘60s, but which is now the stuff that Hallmark Channel dramas are made of. Produced on the cheap, though it seldom shows, first time director Swati Bhise cushions the history …
Do we really need another movie to tell us that children shouldn’t play with guns? War Witch begins promisingly enough with a young mother recounting her life story to her unborn child. Komona’s (Rachel Mwanza) prenatal narration picks up with a rebel soldier ordering the 12-year-old girl to kill her …
The story is based on Robert Kimmel Smith’s bestselling children’s novel; the family it presents is strictly standard issue. Circumstances force retired architect Ed (Robert De Niro) to move in with his daughter's (Uma Thurman) family. It’s grandson Peter (Oakes Fegley) whose anger kicks off the so-called conflict. In an …
An American in Bucharest, new in town following her ambitious husband Francis’ (Karl Glusman) promotion and unfamiliar with the language, Julia’s (Maika Monroe) days are spent people-watching both inside and outside the couple’s spacious apartment. Who needs cable when there’s a thin-lipped crackpot in the apartment across the way begging …
Twenty stories from ten countries, and nary a word (let alone a talking head) comes up. The subject is water as a “terraforming element,” and award-winning documentarian Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes) and acclaimed photographer Edward Burtynsky lead us through a visually sumptuous historical essay on humankind’s thirst for and dependence …
The discovery by a scraggly Norwegian geologist (Kristoffer Joner) of a pending tsunami just happens to coincide with the day he’s planning to uproot his family and move to accept a new position in another town. While there are no cruise ships to upend or towering infernos to extinguish — …
A People Magazine cover shoot masquerading as a movie. The film has everything going for it — interesting story, precise period detail, a big budget, and even bigger stars — but it can’t overcome a director (Sydney Pollack) who has no feel for the time and place. The leads move …
Four orphaned Japanese teenagers who meet at the crematorium on the day of their parents’ incineration go on to form a rock band. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Why must a tale of at-times-unrelenting despair be cast in shades of an overcast winter’s day? Prepare for a chromatic …
Wanting to escape the memories of their dead son, a couple moves from the big city to a remote New England farmhouse. Using the kid’s ghost-in-tow as his lead-in to horror, writer-director Ted Geoghegan directly proceeds to drop as unambitious a haunted house movie as any you’ll find. One jolt: …
A trio of spoiled-rotten siblings disowned by a negligent, filthy-rich father transition from a pampered existence - well-dressed henchmen pitch pennies outside the family’s six-car garage - to a life in the bowels of Mexico City. The abrupt change compels them to take menial jobs in order to survive, but …
It’s been over 30 years since X Japan hit the scene and the popular Asian speed metal band has finally booked a gig at Madison Square Garden. Billed as “visual rock” (read: comic-books-meet-heavy-metal), the group has spent decades shaping Japanese culture. Stan Lee gave them his imprimatur — the Marvel …
Not since Like Normal People — the 1979 TV movie starring Sean Cassidy and Linda Purl as a developmentally disabled couple determined to marry — has a more physically perfect specimen been cast to play the part of an intellectually challenged character. The radiant Moran Rosenblatt stars as Hagit, a …
Through rain, fog, blistering sunlight, and dead of night, cinematographer Giles Nuttgens’ strong-willed, yet delicately lit lens doggedly pursued the inscrutable stranger (Dev Patel) as he journeyed from his British homeland through Pakistan and India. A 20 minute, near dialog-free opening passage presented ample time to observe our traveller before …
One of writer-director Andrew Haigh’s characters bemoans the fact that his upcoming art exhibition will be a “gays only” affair. (“Straights won’t come, because it has nothing to do with their world.”) Instead of following his own advice and offering up a shared experience, Haigh delivers yet another standard-issue gay …