An unnatural disaster in which a ragtag team of professional storm chasers joins forces with other recent graduates of a drama workshop to prove once and for all that stick figures can survive a series of green screen tornadoes. Director/CGI chaser Steven Quale’s fetishistic found-footage approach leaves plenty of room …
Steven Sondheim's musical theater meditation on the complication, compromise, and carnality that adulthood brings to the fairy-tale world of children's fairy tales, gently Disneyfied for younger audiences eager to sing along. (Don't fret when Johnny Depp's leering Big Bad Wolf lifts his leg to block Little Red Riding Hood's progress; …
A showcase from director-star Ralph Fiennes, he of the fierce visage and pleading eyes. First, it is a visual marvel — the framing is now theatrical, now unobtrusive, but always masterful and appropriate. Second, it is a triumph of characterization. Nobody makes speeches; nobody has to. Fiennes plays Charles Dickens, …
Humanistic sci-fi from director Mike Cahill (Another Earth), insofar as it sympathizes with the human longings for both understanding and transcendent mystery. Ian (Michael Pitt) is a scientist seeking an orderly, elegant proof of the random mutations that eventually produced the human eye. Sofi (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) is a manic pixie …
Documentary about train life in modern China, directed by J.P. Sniadecki (Foreign Parts). In Mandarin with English subtitles.
Disappointing, but only because it manages to raise hopes in the first place. Journeyman director Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Thor) does his level best to give us a small-scale story with large-scale consequences — you know, characters we care about, a situation of some importance, and a few gadgets and …
Old man (Clint Eastwood, 84) makes movie about old musical group (Frankie Valli, 80, and The Four Seasons) and manages to keep the whole enterprise from getting either stiff in the joints or whiffy with nostalgia. It's a neat piece of work, accomplished partly through the risky trick of having …
Meanwhile, in 1920's Ireland: Jimmy wants to invite people to his tin hall to talk, dance, learn, sing, and be free human beings. The Catholic Church, which hates talking, dancing, learning, singing, freedom, and humanity, wants to shut him down, because he's an atheist. Oh, and there's some political unrest …
A bolo punch of a reminder that, when not under the evil influence of Jerry Bruckheimer or making films for the financial pleasure of the I.R.S., Nicolas Cage holds sway with the best of them. As Joe, Cage commandeers a backwoods crew of “Timber!” yelling professional nature-killers who poison and …