Comedy out of the better-slob-than-snob school. But then, it hasn't much to be snobbish about. Its main boasting point is in finally giving Rodney Dangerfield a film role large enough to move around in: a nouveau-riche vulgarian who invades the inner sanctum of an exclusive country club. Bill Murray has …
To save time from running the title through Wikipedia, the cadejo are a pair of magical creatures along the lines of Oz’s good witch/bad witch sisters. The only reason Bea (Pamela Martinez) invited older sister Sarita (Karen Martinez) to the club that evening was so that grandma would let her …
Robin Williams slightly (and strangely) constrained as a car salesman and womanizer: we don't see much of his technique in either pursuit, though we get a definite whiff of squalidness. Midway through, a Dog Day Afternoon-type "hostage situation" puts an end to all that, and also to all interest. A …
The emergence of rock-and-roll, as seen from the catbird seat of Chess Records in Chicago: Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, Etta James, et al. The golden music, the vintage cars, the period hairdos retain their glamour; the backstage clichés are just old. Adrien Brody, as producer Leonard …
So what would happen if you staged Julius Caesar in a modern-day Roman prison? These guys found out.
Woody Allen gives a tour of Woody Allenland, complete with gentle and largely unnecessary narration. Unnecessary for the movie, that is. But it’s just possible that this is something else: a primer of sorts, a re-introduction of the old guy’s schtick to a generation that’s only ever read about him …
A woman sets out to rescue her goddaughters from their wicked father, who intends to sell them into sexual slavery in order to cover his drug debts. Along the way, she gets help from a rich man, a Special Forces soldier, and quite possibly, God.
First time in the Middle East for a contented American working wife, now facing Empty Nest Syndrome with two children flown, planning to meet up with her husband in Cairo to see the pyramids together. The husband, a United Nations emissary overseeing a refugee camp in Gaza, is detained incommunicado …
The Academy has a long history of rewarding fetching troupers who consent to part from makeup and shampoo long enough to flagrantly play against type. Jennifer Aniston finds out the hard way that the road to Oscar is anything but a cakewalk. Unlike Charlize Theron, who quite literally transformed into …
A young baker moves from Berlin to Jerusalem in search of his late lover’s family only to end up playing semblant husband and father to the dead man’s widow and son. Credit first-time writer/director Ofir Raul Graizer with pulling off something of a miracle. Not only is the unorthodox premise …
The situation in Northern Ireland is pointed up none too undramatically: a Catholic youth, reluctantly drawn into terrorist activities, develops a yen for the Catholic widow of a Protestant policeman he himself had a hand in murdering. The very tentatively unfolding romance is your basic regimen of lending a hand …
Disneyfied recounting of the human-interest story (ca. 1999) about the matronly members of a Yorkshire Women's Institute who posed for a charity cheesecake calendar. An abundance of tittery comedy, but some darker tones, too, and nice plump roles for the capable Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, and others. Directed by Nigel …
This plays as part of the San Diego Latino Film Festival. According to their catalog, "Estela, a young girl living in Brazil during the mid-80’s, is struggling with adolescence and trying to understand sex, love, and friendships. Her only dream is to travel to California to visit her uncle Carlos, …
A young jazz buff from Chicago arrives by bus in a California beach town to "check out the scene," and he proceeds to make a spectacle of himself by speaking in the lingo and dressing in the style indigenous to the jazz buffs of Chicago, or to the jazz buffs …
Dark and mysterious New Girl in Malibu Chloe lures a trio of bright and shiny California kids into her dark and mysterious and just possibly dangerous world. The fun part is that, if you Google this film, the info box gives its title as Leashed, and the lead character's name …