A brother and sister (Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde) are forced to adopt a strict “shoot now, ask questions later” policy after a casino robbery they masterminded goes terribly wrong. That same day, a boxer (Charlie Hunnam) freshly sprung from the clink accidentally kills his former associate. I suppose there …
An enterprising young newspaper reporter (Steve Talley) reluctantly joins forces with his daily’s ripened, gun-toting bad egg (Eric Roberts) to crack a 19-year-old racially motivated murder in Amos, Alabama. The Alabama Tourism Department has standing to bring suit against screenwriter Mark Ethridge for his mildewed depiction of the Deep South. …
A textbook example of why you should never watch a preview prior to seeing the picture it’s hyping. We open on a mind-boggling performance by card mechanic Richard Turner. (Fair warning: here comes the surprise unveiled by said preview.) Imagine how much more boggled you might have been if the …
This story of a blackface Halloween kegger-party at a fictional, racially divided university generates enough fertile insight to keep the heaps of dialogue compostable to the point where it helps to cover some of the script’s more familiar dirt. Justin Simien’s caustic attack on Ivy League racism frequently finds characters …
A freshly paroled Billy Walker (a durable Ronnie Gene Blevins, equal parts Tom Sizemore and Peter Sarsgaard) returns to his mother’s (Lara Flynn Boyle) home in El Paso to find her weeks away from death. Dr. Perkins (Sam Daley) informs Billy that the law prohibits him from discussing his mother’s …
Don’t let the title put you off; it is an ultramasculine comedy, just not the pointless, “gross out” sort to which we’ve grown accustomed. When Dick suggested that he and his bandmates “get weird,” he had no idea that in the time it took for the credits to roll, he’d …
A trendy one-take pass through a WWI foxhole apprises audiences of how Agatha Christie’s legendary Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot (producer-director Kenneth Branagh doing triple-duty) came by his tufted handlebar. Once aboard the floating scene of the crime, the fuzzy computer generated backdrop is distracting to the point one can’t help …
For those looking to score a front row seat in a shooting gallery comes a remake of the unthinkable. The original vigilante fable was directed by rape connoisseur Michael Winner and if there’s one good thing to be said for this otherwise undesired remake, it’s director Eli Roth’s decision to …
In the hands of crackerjack conjurer Ricky Jay, a deck of playing cards holds the same potential threat as a ninja warrior’s throwing stars. Many remember Jay’s card-flinging act on Merv or the Carson show, while others know him as David Mamet’s good-luck charm. This mesmerizing documentary follows Jay as …
If it’s a choice between heroes drawn from real life and costume-clad warriors, give me the civvies life every time. Admittedly, the TV-friendly character exposition that opens Deepwater Horizon – Mark Wahlberg’s young daughter reveals what daddy does for a living in the form of a class paper read aloud …
If it’s a choice between heroes drawn from real life and costume-clad warriors, give me the civvies life every time. Admittedly, the TV-friendly character exposition that opens Deepwater Horizon – Mark Wahlberg’s young daughter reveals what daddy does for a living in the form of a class paper read aloud …
An oral history of a uniquely American institution as told by third- and fourth-generation counter-men and women. Delicatessens first began dotting the American landscape in the mid-1800s, the time of the great German immigration. At first a confederacy of Jews and Germans, the latter group was eventually replaced by Yiddish-speaking …
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 …
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 …
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 …