Feature-length sitcom: three divorced dads on their weekend with the kids. Canned wisecracks, cAnned wisdom, canned ruefulness. Some well-attuned performances, chiefly from sitcom vet Paul Reiser and, in a more marginal part, Janeane Garofalo as the Blind-Date-from-Hell. But the best thing in it (a telling cinematic comment) is the Mary-Chapin …
Say hello to The Bye Bye Man, this week's new face in PG-13 horror.
The first thing Alexandre (Melvil Poupaud) does after going public about his childhood molestation at the hands of a priest is to gather his family of five around the dinner table to inform them of his decision. One is prone to expect excess in a film by François Ozon (Water …
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Pitt star as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Kidding. Mostly. Anyway, there's a troubled marriage on the French Coast. Written and directed by Ms. Jolie Pitt.
Just another pair of pretty faces, Gemma Arterton and the uni-expressional Saoirse Ronan — no match for Interview with a Vampire's Pitt and Cruise - star as mother and daughter vampires in Neil Jordan’s return to the genre that brought him the most commercial success. Jumping back and forth within …
Mexican-made historical re-enactment of the adventures of a shipwrecked conquistador among American Indians in the 16th Century, his separation from his fellow Spaniards, his apprenticeship to a native medicine man, his independent career as an itinerant miracle worker. The account of any such conversion and assimilation is bound to be …
Takeoff on Captains Courageous, in which a full-grown upper-class twit (Chris Elliott) gets marooned on a fishing boat with a crew of rummy old salts. From there, it takes off into Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Mysterious Island territory: a nautical zone called Hell's Bucket, with its shark-man (Russ Tamblyn), …
Five friends, in one log house, surrounded by numerous flesh-eating neighbors. Sound familiar? It should, seeing how only fourteen years separate this from its predecessor. Not since Gus Van Sant plunged a knife in Psycho have we witnessed such an unnecessary remake. Had Quentin Tarantino upped the number of “Hatefuls” …
Terrorized teens in a desolate location become unwitting participants in a faith-based reality TV show. For 40 minutes we’re treated to an encyclopedic vivisection of everything wrong with contemporary horror movies. The overly clever script by Joss Whedon and director Drew Goddard eventually falls victim to its own satirization, but …
Deprived of parenting as a lad, reared by television ("I learned the facts of life from watching The Facts of Life!"), he's now a lisping cable installer with a flypaper personality: he wants to be best friends with his new customer. Despite some side trips -- Court TV, "theme" restaurants, …
Well-chilled French thriller comparable in degrees centigrade to Time Out, With a Friend Like Harry, Merci pour le Chocolat, Red Lights, et al. An anonymous videocassette in a plastic bag is left without explanation at the doorstep of the civilized host of a book-chat TV show: a two-hour static surveillance …