Other than a prologue flashback to a Transformerzilla-ish creature attacking South Korea, there’s nothing irregular about the setup for this story of an irresponsible drunk (Anne Hathaway) who gets kicked to the curb by her boyfriend and moves back into her parents’ abandoned home. Whether she wants it or not, …
A copy of The Comeback Trail has been lounging on my hard drive for going on four months now. This week, temptation finally got the best of me. George Gallo rocketed out of the gate with such propulsion that his feet never touched down. He scripted Brian De Palma’s underrated …
Robert De Niro again, this time charging through the role of Jackie Burke, a once-mighty sitcom star who decades later has difficulty making the rent as a put-down comic. Any script with Roastmaster General Jeff Ross’s name attached can’t help but yield a few mean-spirited howls. (Included is a reenactment …
Much of the original has long faded from memory; the one moment still buzzing in my grey cells is the location of Zamunda, somewhere beyond the Paramount mountain. True to form for a sequel that is ostensibly a remake, the camera once again draws us past the logo into a …
Arrogant rookie reporter Ben Sheperd (Shia LaBeouf) sets out to make history by exposing a former member of the Weather Underground, currently on the run from the law for a murder he allegedly committed 30 years ago. Nick Sloan (Redford) apparently learned more from watching action movies than his time …
A Sundance favorite that once again proves the film festival should use invisible ink in its stamp of approval. Based on events that took place at a McDonald's in Kentucky in 2004, the by-the-book manager of a ChickWich restaurant (Ann Dowd, destined to be remembered come awards season) fields a …
Late-night deity Conan O’Brien is such a good scout that he’ll stop at nothing short of washing the feet of lepers to win you over in Rodman Flender’s sycophantic, shoot-now-figure-it-out-later documentary. Taped during a concert tour that took place between the time NBC dropped O’Brien and TBS picked him up, …
The opening passage, with a tough, near-mute little scrapper (Leo Howard as “Young Conan”) beating the snot out of every adult the script throws him, held promise. As the full-grown barbarian, all the insufferably preening Jason Momoa can muster is a hint of Ashton Kutcher on steroids. The filmmakers wisely …
A corpse-whispering sawbones from Nigeria who “exemplifies everything it means to be an American” (Will Smith, giving it his syllable-distending Sidney Poitier best) effectively jerks what could have been a Super Bowl–winning punt out of the place-kicker’s path when he calls into play the scientific burden of evidence needed to …
From a cast and crew of virtual unknowns — only producer Rose Troche (Go Fish) rang a bell — comes a curious quest to restore passion. A youngster accidentally beans one of his two mommies with a ball and the shock of the impact is enough to engender a lifestyle …
An Italian monk (Toni Servillo) is invited to attend a G8 summit, ostensibly to hear the confession of his host, global economist Daniel Roché (Daniel Auteiul). Later, the bigwig is found in his hotel room with a plastic bag around his head. Suicide or murder? The monk — a prime …
In the decades since Linda Blair first hocked up a pea-soup facial, Hollywood xerographers have found in demonic possession a perennial cash absorber. Director James Wan (Saw, Insidious) stylishly resists the easy temptation of schlock-shocks and CGI as a means of supplanting storytelling. For its its first hour, this fact-based …
It’s beginning to feel a lot like television. Rather than spend 30 minutes each week watching Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) solve real-life mysteries on a fictional cable show (Curse Breakers?), New Line drops semi-annual theatrical installments from the seemingly limitless Conjuring universe. It’s 1981, and …
It’s beginning to feel a lot like television. Rather than spend 30 minutes each week watching Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) solve real-life mysteries on a fictional cable show (Curse Breakers?), New Line drops semi-annual theatrical installments from the seemingly limitless Conjuring universe. It’s 1981, and …
Let’s return to a time when the sponsor’s name was still built into the show’s title and kids across the land tuned in to watch Marlin Perkins’ weekly animal adventures on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Young Tim Harrison was one of the flock inspired by Perkins — and later, …