Surf froth that features naturalistic male camaraderie, lyrical slo-mo aquatics, a laughable masturbation montage, no less laughable tragedy and triumph. Only the Aussie accents, and perhaps also the gay ingredient, restrict it from the multiplex and relegate it to the art house. Lachlan Buchanan, Xavier Samuel, Reshad Strik, Shane Jacobson, …
Stories of imperfect parents, broken children, and the toll divorce takes on a family are as common as hand-me-down clothes, but few arouse the firsthand dramatic intensity and heartbreak of Tom Quinn’s The New Year Parade. Sandwiched between a pair of Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade — an elaborate display with almost …
Tolerably sweet teen romance, uniting two strangers from the same Jersey high school in a night-long search of Manhattan for a rumored concert by their mutual favorite band, Where’s Fluffy? Gross-out gags are limited to a single, if ongoing, grossery: a drunken girl fishing her cellphone and a wad of …
Two beautiful strangers of opposite sexes but equivalent hurts (she: “That must have been hurtful”; he: “I know you’re hurting”), alone at an isolated inn on the beach; an approaching storm; a walk in the sand; a roll in the hay; a hope for a new beginning. The promise of …
When a reclusive marine biologist is lost at sea off his own private island, his motherless little girl (having picked up none of his Scots accent even though he’s the only person in her life) turns for help to the Indiana Jones-y fictional hero of a series of adventure novels. …
Jaunty dark comedy, vacillating between the chaotic and the sloppy, to do with family dysfunction, college chemistry, anthropology, anthropophagy, adultery, kidnapping, revenge. Writer-director Randall Miller, tripping over big words, lacks the ear for academia, to say nothing of the eye for cinema. His cast carries over key members of his …
Puerto Rican family gathering in snowy Chicago at Christmastime. Mechanical gear-shifting between comedy and drama, but a congenial environment for the Hispanic cast: Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña, John Leguizamo, Vanessa Ferlito, Luis Guzman, Jay Hernandez, Melonie Diaz, and the excruciatingly likable Freddy Rodriguez (plus, as an Anglo in-law, Debra Messing). …
Serial deaths with a pattern: a young person receives a cellphone message of his or her own voice, saying his or her last words, dated two days before he or she says them, ultimately dying on schedule with a marble of rock candy in his or her mouth, after seeing …
Another installment in the long-running royal soap opera. Think of it as Elizabeth: The Genesis, an hysterical-historical story of court intrigue, concentrating heavily, and heavy-breathingly, on bedroom intrigue, the sibling rivalry over the affections of Henry VIII. The “other” Boleyn girl, as she is self-described in the dialogue, turns out …
Thanks to an attractive cast, the creamy cinematography of John Bailey, and the light touch of writer and first-time director Jeff Lowell, we have here an uncommonly pleasant romantic-comic fantasy, in the Blithe Spirit spirit. A heavier touch would have easily been possible in dealing with a jealous ghost hell-bent …
Gus Van Sant revisits the milieu of alienated, inarticulate youth, the milieu of his Elephant, only this time it’s Portland skateboarders and a single impromptu killing, making up in gruesomeness what it lacks in multitude. You should know, from past experience, to expect it to be good-looking (the virtuoso Christopher …
Multiple storylines encircle many facets of the French capital. The city looks splendid; the not very compelling characters (the brink-of-death Romain Duris excepted) keep getting in the way. Several liberating bits of dance, strictly gratuitous. With Juliette Binoche, Fabrice Luchini, Albert Dupontel, François Cluzet, and Mélanie Laurent; directed by Cédric …
Contemporary fairy tale about an accursed heiress with a pig’s snout, a major impediment to her betrothal to a suitable blueblood, the understood formula for lifting the curse. The moral of the tale preaches self-acceptance, but a self-acceptance that brings about a complete and beauteous transformation (a most accommodating metaphor) …
A buddy comedy, a stoner comedy, a crime comedy from the House of Apatow, about a user and his dealer — best friends — on the run from the mob. As the two dopers, James Franco mimics the classic symptoms with dedication, while Seth Rogen is content to be Seth …