Sgt. James Harper (Chris Pine, also producing) is a Special Forces agent honorably discharged without benefits because his blood work came back “filthy” with pain-killing drugs. Back home, his wife (Gillian Armstrong) and son barely recognize the man seated at the kitchen table while his actions — who repairs a …
Ian Curtis has aspirations beyond the trappings of small town life in 1970s England. Wanting to emulate his musical heroes, such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop, he joins a band, and his musical ambition begins to thrive. Soon though, the everyday fears and emotions, that fuel his music, slowly …
Open-minded examination of the coverage of the Second Gulf War on the Al Jazeera satellite channel. The spokespeople for the Arab news station represent their own viewpoint very well; and as the only critical analysis of their work comes from the likes of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (in press-conference footage), …
The pervasive seediness is pretty well taken care of, in short order, with the haircuts, mustaches, bulbous features, and plastic raincoats of the anti-heroes, these superstars of surveillance, and also with the somber, tinkling musical score of David Shire. The disdainful, sedentary camera directions of Francis Ford Coppola serve chiefly …
The pervasive seediness is pretty well taken care of, in short order, with the haircuts, mustaches, bulbous features, and plastic raincoats of the anti-heroes, these superstars of surveillance, and also with the somber, tinkling musical score of David Shire. The disdainful, sedentary camera directions of Francis Ford Coppola serve chiefly …
Double meaning: the sister of a convicted murderer has complete conviction in his innocence. He may be a ne’er-do-well, but he ne’er did as bad as that. The true case, a DNA exoneration case, serves as an advertisement for the Innocence Project, with a specific plug for Barry Scheck, glamorized …
There are still a few signs of Sam Peckinpah's former authority: the crisp color, the flashy but superficial use of cross-cutting and slow-motion, and one particularly photogenic chase over powdery, unpaved roads. Otherwise, the big-name director is reduced to little more than a glorified traffic cop in this banal interpretation …
There is an oddly unfinished quality about this Mafia comedy, as if director Susan Seidelman had lost interest or control or had got distracted by something else. (Possibly something, in specific, starring Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr. Something called She-Devil.) Whatever the case, there are scenes here that never get …
Robert Altman tarries a while longer in the Deep South, idly tracing the stereotypical loopiness of the natives. If the movie lacks the pervasive weather of The Gingerbread Man, it is thickly atmospheric all the same, settling into the locale as into an overstuffed easy chair: Holly Springs, Mississippi, at …
Most of it takes place in an out-of-the-way London restaurant nestled at the end of a wind-whipped and smoke-strewn cul-de-sac patrolled by a pack of scavenging dogs: an image of desolation that suggests the most recent visitor thereabouts might well have been the Luftwaffe. The actual best customer and part …
A street vendor and a rival three-star Michelin Chef butt heads in an international culinary competition. Wai Man Yip directs.
Las Vegas fairy tale, from first-time director Wayne Kramer, full of hand-me-down ideas about the old-school gangster who still believes in busting kneecaps to keep order, the failed showgirl and the tail-for-sale, the poor-man's Sinatra and "the next Harry Connick, Jr.," the changing economic landscape: "There comes a time to …
A sidelined ex-cop, beaten and humiliated by those he swore to serve and protect, watches from the periphery, trying to piece together the motivation behind the crime. The pair of self-inflated punks, on the lam after the botched phone store robbery, opt to hole up in an apartment occupied by …
Paul Newman stars as an abused inmate who suffers from a failure to communicate. If you liked The Shawshank Redemption, well, I don't know how you'll feel about Cool Hand Luke, but they've got a few things in common, and Paul Newman is a helluva lot prettier than Tim Robbins.
True story poured into a comedic jello mold. It tells of the first Jamaican bobsled team, who in 1988 qualified for the Calgary Olympics, and went on from there, outside the scope of the movie, to pitch Miller's Lite. You come out of the theater knowing less about the sport …