Rolando Klein, a Chilean moviemaker routed through the UCLA film department, fabricates a Mayan myth about a mountain-top mystic who is enlisted by drought-plagued Indians to make an appeal to the rain god, Chac. The plot exposition is done ponderously day-by-day and step-by-step. All along, the National Geographic images capture …
From Cooper Raiff, the writer-director-star who constructed the brick-solid romcom Shithouse, returns with this endearingly eccentric tale of Andrew (Raiff), a “party-starting” Bar Mitzvah emcee who makes a connection with guests Domino (a radiant Dakota Johnson) and her autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). (He must live in a very tight-knit …
Is not life in women's prison much like life all over these United States? Corruption in high places, capitalistic back-stabbing and throat-cutting, racial strife, mob riots, drugs, pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, lesbian rape, heterosexual rape, sadism, murder and mayhem, an obscenity every couple of words (or a couple of obscenities …
AIDS-era La Ronde. The round robin of sex partners proposes a number of alternatives to old-fashioned copulation: fully clothed sex, unconsummated sex, no-contact sex. All in all it creates a climate of tolerance, somewhat at war with the climate of tedium. The grayish dull color sets the tone, and the …
Soft-headed heroics from Joe Blow, a student machinist who outruns, outfights, outshoots, outsmarts the combined forces of the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, the CIA, et al., most of whom don't understand that he has been framed for terrorism. The apparent terrorist act -- an explosion that levels eight city …
M. Saravanan directs this tale of college students embroiled in campus combat.
Foolhardy American assault on the Japanese martial-arts tradition. The story concerns the thirty-seven-year feud between rival siblings for possession of two matched swords that have been in the family for generations. One of the brothers is without honor, head of a vast corporation that dwarfs (we are told) General Motors, …
Luca “Director of Desire” Guadagnino’s tennis movie isn’t really about the sport, you see, because as the lovely but perpetually frowning Zendaya points out early on to co-stars and fellow racketeers Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, tennis isn’t a sport, it’s a relationship. To the point where, while she’s putting …
Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when …
Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when …
Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when …
Deficient adaptation of the John Grisham novel about an eager young urban lawyer who takes over the death-row appeal of his Klansman granddad, convicted of bombing the offices of a Jewish attorney and killing his two sons. (The bomb, we are told, was "timed to kill," just to remind us …
Anyone who has spent time in the cleaning service industry will find much to identify with in Lila Avilés’ feature film debut. Ditto those who answer life’s calling by combing film festivals for something of quality with which to connect. This contemplative película devotes its entire running time to a …
The title identifies the room number of the Hotel Martinez in Cannes, in which Wim Wenders entertained a gaggle of his fellow filmmakers one at a time, sat them down in front of a camera and with their backs to a soundless television (the enemy), and confronted them with the …