102 minutes minus closing credits. A famous forensic psychiatrist (a puffy-haired Al Pacino), on the scheduled day of execution of a sadistic killer against whom he testified, receives a distorted-voice cellphone threat, “You have 88 minutes to live.” Once the countdown begins, not a single minute is remotely credible. How …
A family-man gumshoe follows the trail of an apparent snuff film (a genre originally dismissed as an "urban myth") into the S&M; underworld, with a Hollywood porn-shop clerk as his guide. Hyperbolic detective story, combining the routine barbarity and depravity of a Matthew Scudder case (Lawrence Block, novelist) with a …
A film of famous post-production troubles, so watered down in the editing (or somewhere) that you can no longer tell what the hard stuff originally was. Scotch? Bourbon? Rye? Whatever it was, it tastes now like nothing kickier than oversugared and overiced tea: something to do with two style-conscious voluptuaries …
Half-baked hot dish of sex and rock-and-roll, another penetration (so to speak) of triple-X hardcore into the aboveground art house, a plotless chronicle of the burbling passion of two young strangers who meet at a concert and then go on attending concerts in between demonstrations of their passion: tonguing, fingering, …
Just when one thought Jenny Slate (Obvious Child, My Blind Brother, Gifted) had impeccable taste in projects, here comes this disorganized formation of cliches surrounding mental illness. Like a John nervously compensating his hooker, unkempt mental patient Josh (Zachary Quinto, or is it Jason Schwartzman with a hellish hair-comb?) unpockets …
Directorial debut of Stephen Gaghan, "Oscar-winning" screenwriter of Traffic. An unmoored, becalmed suspense film about a missing-person case on a college campus. Every now and then he does a scene, or a shot, in blue or gold (more often blue), and every now and then he jiggles the camera -- …
Gaudily, cheesily baroque Vincent Price vehicle, with some woozily far-fetched assassination schemes. Directed by Robert Fuest.
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 …
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 …
A seven-time college reject (Justin Long) creates his own fictitious college -- South Harmon Institute of Technology, or SHIT for short -- to appease his parents and to accommodate fellow rejects. "A bad idea from the get-go," counsels a close friend -- a movie review within the movie. A couple …
James Gunn did a little movie about dysfunctional superheroes called Super and landed a big budget feature about same called Guardians of the Galaxy. Josh Trank did a little movie about angsty adolescent superheroes called Chronicle and landed a big budget feature about same called The Fantastic Four. Now Gavin …
Jim Carrey may well be the Jerry Lewis of the Nineties. Which would mean, in addition to masturbation jokes and such, that where Lewis had directors who were also stylists (himself, Tashlin), Carrey, here on the trail of the sacred white bat of mythical Nibia in Darkest Africa, has someone …
Paul McGuigan's unsavory anthology of three short stories by Irvine Welsh (author of Trainspotting), combining sordid naturalism and scabrous whimsy. God Himself plays a major part in the first story ("That cunt Nietzsche was wide of the mark when he said that I was dead"), and puts in cameo appearances …
He's a steel-fisted, but gunless, Detroit police sergeant (demoted from lieutenant), with a Harvard law degree and a '66 Chevy Impala. Scriptwriter Robert Reneau -- who has a few cute ideas, such as a hairdresser named Dee who is prone to alliterate with the fourth letter of the alphabet -- …