The opening shot from writer-director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is packed so full of visual information that it would take a mausoleum to house it all. From the distanced perspective of a front porch, we watch as soldiers oversee a pair of earth-grinding steam shovels. The veranda is attached to a small …
A prune-faced piece of erotica to do with a dweebish dot-commer (Peter Sarsgaard) who persuades a skinny stripper (Molly Parker) to accompany him to Vegas for a wild weekend on her terms: separate rooms, no kissing on the mouth, no penetration, four hours per night, ten G's on the barrelhead. …
The premise is an agreeably loopy take on the notion that no good deed goes unpunished: when chubby teenager Robby Weirdicht (Dwayne Johnson) gets tossed naked and wet in front of a school assembly, superstar senior Calvin “Golden Jet” Joyner (Kevin Hart) lends him his letterman jacket for coverage. Twenty …
Warmly photographed, slushy road movie revolving around a motherless urchin who gets under the skin, onto the conscience, and into the heart of a dishonest stranger, together setting out in search of the boy's unknown father. The Brazilian locales add some grit. But not enough. With Fernanda Montenegro and Vinicius …
Wall-of-the-Roman-Empire epic, set in the early 2nd Century A.D., the wall being the figurative one the Romans ran into among the Picts in Northern Britain and the literal one Hadrian built further to the south, the outer boundary. In essence Cavalry-and-Indians in skirts and breastplates, the narrative centers on seven …
Sam (Michael Angarano) is a charming, boyish goof up. He crashes the wedding weekend of his great ex-love (Uma Thurman). She towers over him, as does her suave, posh fiancé (Lee Pace), a vain preener who seems unthreatened. Director Max Winkler (son of Henry) pulls off small comic nuances, but …
Don’t expect Certain Women’s tale of four disparate Montana women whose lives crisscross to end with the quartet comfortably telescoping in one central locale. The opening section, involving Laura Dern as a lawyer whose male client places more faith in the judgment of a man than a woman, is fairly …
The first feature outside Iran by suavely tricky director Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry). Operatic baritone William Shimell plays an art writer whose main theme is originality vs. duplication. In Tuscany he meets antiques dealer Juliette Binoche, who gives him a spirited, ego-deflating lesson in what is real and isn’t …
Three-cornered love affair in placid pastels. The complicated situation unfolds along an unpredictable path that never, in its lengthy meanderings, comes anywhere near deep psychology or timely themes or trendy film techniques. While the whole thing seems to be a sort of anachronism, it develops a sort of stubborn lifelikeness …
Michael Pena stars as the founder of the United Farm Workers farm labor union.
The last temptation of Cesar Chavez, tireless crusader against a farm labor system that treats its workers like dirt, as presented through rare documentary footage and the partisan eyes of friends and family members. In July of 1988, the then 65-year-old head of United Farm Workers Union embarked on a …
After a fire accident triggers a radiation leakage, Hong Kong suddenly finds its survival hanging by a thread. In order to tackle the impending catastrophe, expert Simon Fan joins the emergency crisis response team led by Acting Chief Executive Cecilia to tackle this catastrophic disaster. With the lives of 7 …
Another franchise in the French coming-of-age industry. Semi-autobiographical, bien sûr, nosing around the same territory that Diane Kurys scoured earlier in Peppermint Soda and Entre Nous. An eight-year-old girl bursts through a closed door and smack into a deadly silence in a tiff between mère and père: everyone freezes, and …
Artists are a famously difficult bunch: if they’re not wreaking havoc as they wrestle their demons into something fit for public consumption, then they’re plundering everyone and everything around them in service of their precious art. It may be edifying to admire the result, but would you want to grow …
Harry Baweja writes, directs, and produces this animated adventure film. In Hindi, Punjabi, and English.