Rather too dreamily photographed; but this little parable about four Atlanta businessmen out of their element on a canoe trip in uncivilized hillbilly country is very intensely acted, especially by Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty in very tricky roles. Manliness is the issue at nearly every turn, and the varying …
Scott Derrickson's latest foray into "based on a true story" exorcism-land — he broke through with 2005's The Exorcism of Emily Rose — benefits from some creative setup (the demon arrives from the Middle East via Iraq vets who stumble upon an underground altar), some clever genre mashup (the film …
Documentarist Amy Berg puts a human face on the pedophiliac priest: the extremely creepy one of Father Oliver O'Grady (familiarly, "Father Ollie"), a serial abuser, of both sexes, in several parishes in Northern California in the Seventies and Eighties (youngest victim: nine months). His willingness to talk about the case, …
Ken Scott's Canadian comedy Starbuck made enough money stateside to earn him a seat in the director's chair for this subtitle-free rehash. Who better than beefy Vince Vaughn to star as a professional sperm donor who falls victim to a class action lawsuit brought against him by hundreds of the …
Modernized biography of songwriter Cole Porter, digging up all the bisexuality that Night and Day in 1946 could not go near. Despite the theatrical device of reviewing his life as a musical show emceed by the Grim Reaper, it remains a rather banal backstage story, lacking much in the way …
Current events copied and rewritten (and painstakingly explained for those not in the know: "Israel is America's best friend in the Middle East," the command post informs its field officer. "And it's only twenty minutes from Beirut."). There is even less creativity in the rewriting, if possible, than in the …
The amiable and pitiable Chuck Norris surrounded as usual by bumblers and incompetents. Chief among them his director and brother, Aaron. With Billy Drago and John P. Ryan.
When it comes to overstrung, antisocial characters, Jake Gyllenhaal sure knows how to pick (and breathe new life into) them. We all grieve in our own way, and after surviving a car crash that claims the life of his wife, Davis Mitchell (Gyllenhaal), a beastly investment banker at the top …
2032 A.D. The repressive utopia of San Angeles (merger of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego) is disrupted when a 20th-century criminal called Simon Phoenix (the name is bad enough; the yellow hair is worse) escapes from cryo-prison. The cop who put him there, and who has inhabited an ice …
The movies’ first monster was a Dybbuk, the “son-of-mud” creation with a wandering spirit based on Yiddish folklore. This atmospheric update finds the ghost of a young Jewish girl who disappeared without a trace possessing the body of a British bridegroom (Itay Tiran), “a white snowflake that falls into a …
Silly willies: your basic Night of the Living Dead-type siege, under the aegis of Satan, but also that of TV's Tales from the Crypt, complete with jocular prologue and epilogue hosted by the Crypt Keeper. Gore galore, and bare breasts of great size if not frequency. All very adolescent. With …
Corporate espionage in the slimy world of cybersex. Writer-director Olivier Assayas sidles up to the skulduggery in casual fashion, dallies among the ambiguities and amoralities, never really hits his stride. The Danish-born Connie Nielsen (who has made movies in France before) and the American Chloë Sevigny speak impeccable French, and …
Science-fiction satire about a computer that possesses an organic brain, Robert Vaughn's voice, a male chauvinist attitude, and a consuming desire for Julie Christie to bear him a flesh-and-blood heir. Donald Cammell, writer and co-director of Performance, handles this foolishness with little sense of fun, except perhaps in his creation …
Live reading of an original story and a live dubbing performance featuring the cast of Demon Slayer.