A film school thesis project that somehow found its way into general release. Writer-director Stephen Dunn deals his semi-autobiographical debut deck — specifically, a spate of acutely symbolic reoccurring dream sequences — with a heavy hand. Mom (Joanne Kelly) booked early on, leaving young Oscar (Jack Fulton) to fend for …
The potential of crumbling limestone landscapes poses a geological threat to the mountainous region of an age-old Chinese town — and the high speed railroad that runs through it. What separates Cloudy Mountain from Hollywood disaster films of yore? Not much. Cliffhangers, rock climbers, stowaways, pointless time-stamps designed to add …
Shot in America European-style — 1.66:1 aspect ratio and in muted shades of black-and-white — director Mike Mills (Beginners, 20th Century Women) is clearly banking on Academy highbrows sweeping their votes in his direction. And who better to front such an ostentatious operation than Joaquin Phoenix in his first film …
Where do they get off calling it an “Apple Original” when part of CODA’s (as in: Children of Deaf Adults) premise (and a good handful of its scenes) are lifted from the French/Belgian film from 2014, The Bélier Family? Normally, I’d concede the rationale behind American-language remakes of foreign films …
Can algorithms discriminate based on personal prejudices embedded into the technology? Are computers capable of racism and sexism? In her quest to create an inspiration mirror for her science project, M.I.T student Joy Buolamwini discovered her computer software program worked only when she donned a white mask. The training sets …
Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash on September 17, 1961 while traveling to negotiate a ceasefire in Katanga. Danish journalist and documentarian Mads Brügger concludes that had he lived, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations’ mandate that Africans live their lives in full independence would have put an …
A hard-working family man (Michael C. Hall, given a distinct mullet and Billy Bob Thornton makeover) kills an unarmed home invader only to face exacted terrible retribution from the boy’s recently paroled psycho-daddy (Sam Shepherd). Cape Fear meets 8mm in this thriller that never quite wrenches the gut enough to …
It’s early in the year, so that means it’s time for another Liam Neeson outing in which a lucky co-star will be kidnapped and/or killed in order to set in motion the perennial revenge formula. This time it’s a son who barely survives the credits before his snowplow-driving dad (Neeson) …
Once again, Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, the writing/directing team that brought us The Last of Robin Hood, find delight in giving audiences a biographical glimpse into the lives of a publicly scandalous pair — in this case, ghostwriter, androgynous fashion plate, and all-around feminist icon Colette (Keira Knightley) and …
The passage of two years after his 6-year-old daughter’s death finds grieving advertising exec Will Smith addressing letters to Love, Time, and Death. Reasoning that two years is adequate time to suffer, his callous co-workers and purported BFFs (Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, and Michael Pena) employ a private investigator to …
Nicholas Hoult, an American expat/ex-car thief living in Germany, comes out of retirement to bankroll a kidney transplant for Felicity Jones, his girlfriend of 30 days. Much of Hoult’s acting style consists of covering his face to deflect shards of laminated safety glass, while Academy Award-nominee Jones bleached her hair …
If you live in Colma, CA, the “graveyard capital of the world” where the dead outnumber the living 1500 to 1, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to do but sing the blues. Might as well get it out on paper, which is exactly what screenwriter/lyricist (and lead …
Colombiana is an Angelina Jolie action-blockbuster without the Jolie. Enter Zoe Saldana, an actress Hollywood can’t quite pigeonhole, as Cataleya, a stock exotic-female vigilante poised to take on a slew of interchangeable male aggressors. The opening sequence — a chase that allows nine-year-old Cataleya (Amandla Stenberg) to show off her …