Or, “The Further Whitewashing of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” this time with an all-black cast. The promise of talented Will Gluck’s (Fired Up, Easy A) name attached as producer never materialized. Leaning on the okay 1986 film version About Last Night… (give or take an ellipses) rather than …
Sebastian (Sebastian Maniscalco) is encouraged by his fiancée (Leslie Bibb) to bring his immigrant, hairdresser father, Salvo (De Niro), to a weekend get-together with her super-rich and exceedingly eccentric family (Kim Cattrall, Anders Holm, Brett Dier, David Rasche). The weekend develops into what can only be described as a culture …
Alexander Payne's late-life-crisis comedy about a retired Omaha insurance executive who now begins to wonder what it was all about. Jack Nicholson may be too big a star, or too hip a one, in relation to his surrounding cast (chosen with care down to the smallest role), but you cannot …
Long ago, Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo pitched itself with the tagline, "Because you never get a second chance to make a first impression." Guess again, chump! When he turns 21, Domhnall Gleeson discovers he can time travel. So he sets about shamelessly manipulating Rachel McAdams into falling in love …
A television documentary celebration of NASA.
Introducing (drum-roll, please) new movie tough guy Steven Seagal (cymbal-crash!): "You guys think you're above the law. Well, you ain't above mine." If the tango dancer's hairstyle and gigolo's gentle purr don't quite convince you, the "ain't" should allay all doubts. His most unique contribution to the action-hero pantheon: a …
A jump-ball for the soul of a high-school hoopster: bright prospects on one side, dark influences on the other. Stupefyingly unimaginative and amateurishly directed (Jeff Pollack), but Leon -- just Leon, no last name -- makes a good impression as the Strong Silent Type. With Duane Martin, Tupac Shakur, Marlon …
Perhaps surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is not just a showcase for director Timur Bekmambetov's relentless and varied barrage of combat-related special effects. (This is one of those films where 3-D really makes a difference, perhaps especially in its treatment of vampire eyes. We're a long way from Twilight's red …
An ICE agent struggling with the moral dilemmas of border security and an undocumented woman fighting to escape a ruthless cartel cross paths. Starring Adria Arjona, Garrett Hedlund, and Zoe Saldaña.
Heavy entertainment from Sydney Pollack. It spends so much time lining up its journalistic-ethics issues that it is stymied as a romantic thriller, and at the same time, or at a different time, its romantic-thriller obligations sidetrack and dilute the issues. The basic situation here is not hard to imagine …
I remember that wonderful summer when the teenage miracle reached full bloom -- it was 1958, in London, and for the first time in history, according to the original novel by Colin MacInnes, "kids" had become "teenagers." The vehicle for this slice of sociology is a triple-scoop youth musical, with …
The early ‘90s TV series about the Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), and the triumph of PR over reality gets a worthy capstone, full of gleeful amorality and two characters whose self-absorption reaches a sort of mystical apotheosis. Even in the narcissistic world of fashion, Eddie and …
After The Bridges of Madison County, after A Perfect World, after Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood the director opts to relax a little. But not right off the bat. The first half-hour or so (of a characteristically unhurried two hours) is as focussed and concentrated an opening stretch as anything this side …
Throughout history, documentarians have scaled the heights of non-narrative cinema, dedicated to the belief that there was no fact too insignificant nor challenge too great for the curious spectator. Vertov! Flaherty! Jennings! Marker! Wiseman! Akerman! Herzog!. When the time came for these trailblazers to put their insight and veracity to …