Who among us wouldn't go on a 90-minute killing spree if someone murdered our adorable beagle pup? Anyone not on board? Okay, what if the beagle pup was a posthumous gift from your beloved wife, your one opportunity to "grieve unalone" for the woman who rescued you from your life …
Lightly tweaked PR synopsis: Juliette Lewis is Kelly, a punk-rocker turned suburban mom who is nostalgic for a life she can no longer have and uncertain about her future. Seventeen-year-old Cal (Jonny Weston) is frustrated because he's stuck in a wheelchair. When the two strike up an unlikely friendship, it's …
San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter Gary Webb sparked furious debate when a piece he wrote alleged that Nicaraguans, hired by CIA-supported Contras, smuggled cocaine into the U.S. which was later transformed into crack and distributed in African-American communities. (The story broke in January 1998, but was overshadowed by headline-grabbing …
A teacher discovers that one of her students is a prodigy, and sets out to nourish his gift. Complications ensue. Directed by Nadav Lapid. Subtitled.
Not quite a coda to Sebastian Junger's and Tim Heatherington's gripping you-are-there 2010 Afghanistan war documentary Restrepo — more of a commentary track, or a series of annotations. Here, the live-fire footage at outpost Restrepo in the ever-active Korengal Valley is heavily intercut with soldier talk, either in repose or …
File under "Lost in Translation." Or maybe just "lost." Antisocial, aging Tokyo office lady Kumiko (29 and not even dating!) lives alone with her bunny Bunzo and her newly found VHS copy of the Coen Brothers' Fargo, a film that famously starts with the claim, "This is a true story" …
One is likely to find more inside cameo appearances than a mid-period John Landis picture in this affectionate homage to the lowliest genre of them all, the slasher film. Director and co-writer Teddy Chan’s straight out non-PC tale of courage triumphing over adversity follows a clubfooted serial killer (Baoqiang Wang) …
Once you get past the temporary insanity of the premise — escaped killer takes mother and son prisoner in their own home and quickly becomes the lover she craves and the father he needs — the weird sincerity of the performances from Josh Brolin, Kate Winslet, and Gattlin Griffith may …
Come for the movie, stay for the message. It’s 1963, and an ambitious prosecutor — and one of the few good Germans in Naziland — thinks it time to finally alert a nation of orders-following, Holocaust-denying Huns to the existence of Auschwitz. Alexander Fehling (imagine a young John Wayne with …
An aimless and emotionally forsaken 20-something (Keira Knightley) desperately in need of deliverance winds up temporarily moving in with one of the minors for whom she illegally buys beer (Chloë Grace Moretz). Luckily, the kid has a hot single daddy (Sam Rockwell). This marks the first time director Lynn Shelton …
Don Argott's documentary tells two interconnected stories, but it started out to tell just one. The idea was to travel with the metal band Lamb of God on the world tour in support of their album Resolution, interviewing fans about their (often intense) connection to the band — and by …
A pair of ex brothers-in-law from the Bluegrass State (hushful Paul Eenhoorn and blustery Foghorn Leghorn proxy, Earl Lynn Nelson) are set adrift on a garrulous, firstclass Shirley Valentine cruise to Iceland. Sony Pictures Classics harpooned this understated, sprinkled-with-sugar two-character travel yarn after its debut at Sundance. David Gordon Green …
Now that the San Diego Opera is probably closing down, this may be your best bet for grand local opera.
A conventional documentary (talking heads, old photos, period footage and news reports), but a near-perfect example of the form. The subject is the 1975 evacuation of Americans and their South Vietnamese compatriots from Saigon as the North Vietnamese army closed in on the city. By hook or by crook; by …