Stephen Fry's admiring, not to say admirable, adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, a moralistic social satire to do with the hard-partying idle rich in England entre les guerres, but with obvious "relevance" to today: materialism, hedonism, drugs, sex, sleazoid press, and so on. The sloppy direction leaves you grasping …
A movie about storytelling that succeeds by keeping its focus on the storyteller. James Pope (Kyle Mooney, who also co-wrote) is a young man who discovers that his entire life has been a fiction. In response, he latches onto the one thing that was “real” — the children’s TV show …
For his first narrative feature, documentarian Morgan Matthews (Shooting Bigfoot) learns the hard way that a safe blend of comedy and autism make for an unremarkable movie. Asa Butterfield (Hugo) puts his transient lack of motor reactions to the test as a gifted teenager whose life changes when an unconventional …
Sub-Pinter social satire by Dennis (Pennies from Heaven) Potter, about a smarmy young stranger who insinuates himself into a suburban London household and shines a light into its dark corners. What does the stranger himself hope to get out of it, besides some sexual relations with the vegetalized daughter of …
A brother and sister witness a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother. From directors Danny and Michael Philippou and starring Sally Hawkins, Billy Barrat, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, and Sally-Anne Upton.
Steve Martin as a divorced tax lawyer seeking companionship in an Internet chatroom, finding the ample, the abundant Queen Latifah, fresh out of prison: the uptight white and the up-front black. Predictable but not disagreeable. The two stars could play this in their sleep, yet they give every appearance of …
Minor Martin Scorsese, but in view of recent performance, minor is an improvement. Major Scorsese (Kundun, Casino, The Age of Innocence) is pretentious Scorsese, puffed-up Scorsese, inflated Scorsese. This one, an anti-valentine to New York City in the pre-Giuliani years of the decade, is an unmistakable companion piece to his …
Screwball comedy involving, among others, a paleontologist, a society girl with an uncorrectable high opinion of herself and an unstoppable word flow, a fox terrier who has stolen and buried a priceless brontosaurus bone, a big-game hunter, and a pet leopard whose temper can be soothed by the singing of …
Milla Jovovich plays an Eastern European mostly-reformed grifter trying to raise an American boy in the American heartland. Bill Pullman plays an American heartlander.
Peppy youth film on competitive cheerleading, with neither the nerve to play it straight nor nerve to play it snide. A wobbly compromise. And a nimbly diplomatic performance by Kirsten Dunst. With Eliza Dushku, Jesse Bradford, Gabrielle Union; directed by Peyton Reed.
An Irish shepherding family faces conflicts on multiple levels. They deal with internal discord, family tensions and a rival farmer while grappling with cultural and generational issues. Starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott, from award-winning filmmaker Christopher Andrews.
At one point in Alison Klayman’s documentary on political provocateur Steve Bannon’s doings following his departure from the White House, the populist proselytizer turns to the camera and says, “I’m gonna get so crushed in this film.” He says it because he’s a supposed friend of the working man, and …
A gang of comical crooks, rousted from the pages of Damon Runyon, knocks over the Brink's stronghold in Boston and is all set to live high on the hog the rest of their lives, when one of their members, played by Warren Oates, double-crosses them by going straight (as opposed …