Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener) uses Max Ophüls’s dazzling La Ronde as a blueprint for this cluttered globe-hopping melodrama featuring an all-star international cast in various stages of grief and infidelity. The set-up is exquisite: the use of architecture and highly reflective surfaces function as serviceable tributes …
No one'll ever write a book titled The McG Touch, particularly one based on the time he killed directing this movie. Here’s another Luc Besson production that appears to have been sitting on a shelf in the Cannon Film vault since 1977. Who better than McG (Charlie’s Angels, Terminator Salvation) …
In a fit of calculated desperation, a young woman (Marziyeh Rezaei) fires off several electronic cries-for-help to celebrated Iranian actress Behnaz Jafari (playing herself). When her pleas go unanswered, Rezaei construes the rejection as an excuse to document her hanging — in chilling long-take — and implicate Jafari in the …
Lee Aronsohn was attending the University of Colorado “looking to major in sex and drugs.” Little did the future sitcom writer/producer realize that he was planting the seeds that, four decades later, would flower into this fond endeavor to recapture fleeting youth. A local band, going by the name of …
Writer-director Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years is a two-hander about aging that refuses to walk the generally prescribed paths of shedding sentiment and/or dwelling on disease, and for that alone, it deserves hardy praise. On the eve of a couple’s 45th anniversary, news arrives of the discovery of a body found …
Stick two hot siblings (Mandy Moore, Claire Holt) vacationing in Mexico in an iron cage, dunk them in the shark-infested deep, and hope the Dolby Atmos and visual effects work will do most of the heavy lifting. One anticipates the random acts of dopiness often associated with this “if it …
The seventh installment in what could very well be television’s first reality show. In 1964, Paul Almond began filming a group of fourteen seven-year-old British schoolkids. The directorial reins were later handed to Michael Apted, who has since gone back at regular seven-year intervals to document the group's growth. Inspired …
It’s a case of lackluster presentation taking a backseat to historical importance when Dan Kraus and double-Oscar-winner Paul Haggis take us inside San Francisco General Hospital, Ward 5B, the first inpatient facility in the country designed specifically to provide compassion and treatment to AIDS patients. The was 1983, a bygone …
After a pithy, 60-second opening treatise on the virtues of living in San Diego, this locally produced, low-budget romantic drama settles in for ten minutes of expository narration, courtesy of star Tom Sizemore directly addressing the audience. Ride it out, and you'll be rewarded with a highly watchable, character-driven throwback …
The lives of fourteen subjects are observed staring at age seven and followed by incremental updates every seven years. What was originally intended as a one-off documentary on the British class system for the topical news series is now in its ninth installment. There were many characters that I grew …
What separates this account of the counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission that ended on July 4, 1976 from the two made-for-TV versions that came out within a year of the hijacking is elementary. If the focus is on the all-star cast of passengers, it’s a disaster picture. If the story is told …
Just when one thought Jenny Slate (Obvious Child, My Blind Brother, Gifted) had impeccable taste in projects, here comes this disorganized formation of cliches surrounding mental illness. Like a John nervously compensating his hooker, unkempt mental patient Josh (Zachary Quinto, or is it Jason Schwartzman with a hellish hair-comb?) unpockets …
A young man finds his baby photo plastered across a missing persons website. A solid foundation for a thriller wasted on still another attempt to renew interest in director John Singleton’s faded reputation, this time via a Taylor Lautner vehicle. From *Boyz n the Hood* to a boy made of …
A little fib snowballs into an avalanche of lies over the course of a three-day family getaway. For the first 30 minutes, writer-director Asghar Farhadi acts the role of magician, using sleight-of-hand to sufficiently divert audience attention away from the cataclysmic events about to take place. It’s when Elly (Taraneh …