Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) is a haughty, hunky narcissist at a fancy New York school, until the campus witch (Mary-Kate Olsen) makes him ugly. He looks vandalized by a varicose-veins tagger, but with the help of a cool chick (Vanessa Hudgens) and a blind sage (Neil Patrick Harris) he learns that …
A documentary for fans of A Tribe Called Quest. For the rest of us, subtitles of the lyrics would sure help. The influential, Queens-rooted band rose to hip-hop eminence, then fell apart (it has revived for some nostalgia gigs). The music is muscled by ego stress between haughty, preening Q-Tip …
The movie should be chewing logs of wild comedy, but director Jody Foster prefers to paddle in the pond of earnest family drama. Haggard, driven Mel Gibson is a depressed toy executive whose saving alter-ego is the fuzzy hand-puppet of a beaver. Through it he is able to speak again, …
When writer-director Mike Mills isn’t flashing oodles of perky technique and “stylish” doodads (drawings, meet-cutes, old news clips, vintage music), his talented cast inserts human value and charm into this tale of a nice, lonely guy (Ewan McGregor) who lost his suddenly gay, then dead dad (Christopher Plummer) and finds …
Jack Black is the life-based but rather cartoonish Bernie, a sweet, dapper, fussy (read: gay) undertaker in Carthage, Texas. He is an angel disguised as an oddball, loved by all, even (for a time) the mean widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine). Director Richard Linklater provides a cozy jacket of style, is …
Or, Grand Hotel meets Downton Abbey in the old Merchant & Ivory curry kitchen. An aging bunch of swell Brits (though Penelope Wilton is a sour pickle) gather at a pretty, decaying hotel in Udaipur, India, for sunset lessons in living. It is very tidy and quaintly picturesque but humanly …
The better life desired by Carlos (Demián Bichir) is to own a truck and improve his chances of success as (an illegal) Mexican gardener in L.A. His son (José Julián) has difficult teen moods and is of little help. Director Chris Weitz keeps it straight and simple, yet always credible, …
The Bhuttos are the Kennedys of Pakistan. This smart, angry, informative documentary traces the rise and fall and unjust death of progressive leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. And even more, of his proud, brave daughter Benazir, twice a coup victim and finally murdered. Choose your worst villain: the army, the security …
Nature tourism lamely disguised as comedy. Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black play fanatical birders competing to see as many feathery critters as possible in one year. They run around the country, making cute faces between bird views, and classy old actors (Anjelica Huston, Brian Dennehy, Dianne Wiest) are …
Chipper, charming, ascetic, probably gay, Cunningham at 82 is a terrific movie subject. For decades he has photographed people of chic or idiosyncratic fashion on New York streets and at parties, caring not (he says) about celebrities, only style. His work, much of it published in the Times, has helped …
Ballet hokum becomes a head trip of pop-goth stylization as director Darren Aronofsky falls off his raw, real form of The Wrestler. Natalie Portman worked hard as the traumatized ballerina but spins around in a blur of bad dancing, one-note acting, and demented plot. Helping to creep it up are …
A new Western classic, enough to make Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid seem like a sappy prequel. Old Butch (Sam Shepard), now called Blackthorn, hides out in deep Bolivia raising horses and loving a village woman (but still able to ride hard and shoot fast) when a Spanish mining …
Derek Cianfrance’s first feature is about a boyish ex-con (Ryan Gosling) who lacks ambition. His more focused wife (Michelle Williams), a nurse, tires of his limitations as drink, temper, dutiful sex, and parenting corrode the remains of romance. Williams is excellent, Gosling ragged. In a way that recalls John Cassavetes’s …
A beautifully filmed and cogent tribute to two women and their adopted animals. Birute Galdikas rescues orphaned orangutans in Borneo, and Daphne Sheldrick raises baby elephants in Kenya. The creatures, once weaned, are returned to the wild. In IMAX 3-D, the orphans are so vividly present they’re almost beyond adorable. …
A retro "woman's picture" more than a modern "chick flick," Ben Sombogaart's fact-based film is like a nostalgic collector's set of cherished movie types. Three young women bond on a postwar flight from Holland to New Zealand. They then share crises, a lover, even a baby, as each finds her …