A pretentious mess from Tony Kaye (American History X). Lean, saint-faced Adrien Brody plays a school teacher rightly cynical about the dismal system. He compounds the daily crisis by encouraging the fantasies of a neurotic girl and nurturing a nymphetic drug whore (Sami Gayle). The story is alarmed gibberish, providing …
In 1900, a white woman was murdered in Chinatown in San Francisco, and the suspect was a Chinese man. The murder caused social shock, and people demanded the closure of Chinatown.
The 2015 action, comedy, mystery was such a success that a sequel was in order.
Two mismatched cousins — one a well-mannered police academy reject, the other a wild 'n crazy guy — must solve a murder in Bangkok. Cheng Sicheng directs. In Mandarin and Thai.
Something is making the wrong people burst into flame prior to the Empress’s inauguration, and Detective Dee is summoned to crack the case. Like a good modern detective, he rejects supernatural explanations for the deaths, instead focusing on the thrillingly mundane realms of chemistry, zoology, and political intrigue. Unlike a …
Detective Kien investigates a headless body found in a rural Vietnamese village during the Nguyen Dynasty. As supernatural elements emerge, he faces chilling twists in this 19th-century mystery. Directed by Victor Vu, starring Quoc Huy, Dinh Ngoc Diep, Quoc Anh, Minh Anh, and Pham Quynh Anh,
The king orders Joseon's top detective (Kim Myung-min) to investigate mysterious murders. As he goes under cover he teams up with an influential businesswoman and they uncover disturbing secrets that link the murders to a massive conspiracy.
In a happier world, Detention would be the last meta-movie, the one that took the practice of referencing previous movies (both in general and particular) to such a ridiculous and self-defeating extreme that the exercise lost all its appeal. In the meantime, there are so many layers to the self-consciousness …
A tidy little small-scale low-budget thriller on an apocalyptic theme (same as Fail-Safe, same as Crimson Tide), a bout of nuclear brinkmanship -- or "Showdown in the Desert," as the cable news channel instantaneously christens it -- between the new leader of Iraq (Saddam's son) and the first Jewish U.S. …
Remember the torture, er, enhanced interrogation scene in Zero Dark Thirty? The one that produced good intel that ultimately aided in the detection and subsequent elimination of Osama Bin Laden? Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal are happy to repeat the theme here, as light-skinned folks once again abuse …
A nostalgic ramble down the road to a KISS concert (ca. 1978), in the bonehead-and-proud-of-it style of a heavy-metal music video. The unrelenting songtrack heightens the effect. (Co-founder of the band, Gene Simmons, co-produced the movie.) With Edward Furlong, Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Sam Huntington, Natasha Lyonne, Melanie Lynskey, and …