Twenty-five years in the lives of the one-time "Gray Ghost" in the backfield of the LSU Sugar Bowl champs of 1955-56 and the same-time "Magnolia Queen," who subsequently married. Because the story is based on a novel by the eminent sportswriter Frank Deford, we might have hoped for a greater-than-usual …
A look at the life of genre blending artist and style icon, Lil Peep.
A good-things-happen-to-kidnappers comedy, with a trendy tie-in to the cult of celebrity. How's this for plotting? Begin with a blue-collar Belgian, a blindly (or perhaps clairvoyantly) proud papa who's convinced of the latent talent of his overweight bovine daughter, despite her consistent judges' scores of "2" and "3" for her …
Rueful road movie, an American resetting of a Giuseppe Tornatore tearjerker, in which an ailing widower takes off cross-country in his all-brown wardrobe, New York to Chicago to Denver to Vegas, to visit individually the scattered adult children who can't make time to visit him collectively, uncovering lessons along the …
The sentimental journey of a Sicilian pensioner (Marcello Mastroianni, his eyes magnified by coke-bottle lenses) to the mainland to visit his five grown children. The children, all named after opera characters, appear to him periodically as juveniles; and there's a recurring nightmare about a predatory hot-air balloon; and Fellini-isms litter …
A strict and solitary woman meets a teenager with a love of life. In their differences they discover infinite possibilities and insurmountable gaps.
A cheerfully bullshit, oddly handsome daydream about the glories of pre-collegiate life (the three days before classes start, to be precise) in early ‘80s Texas. Why oddly handsome? Because the early ‘80s may not have been a pretty time, but writer-director Richard Linklater has buffed this particular cow patty to …
A private-eye case that pounds away at that old punching bag, City Hall corruption, but from a moralist's perspective, or an editorialist's, rather than a genre writer's. Because the writer is Arthur Miller (yes, that Arthur Miller), it pounds hard and relentlessly, without a lot of niftiness -- a sort …
The daily goings-on of an upper middle class family are presented for your watercooler enjoyment. Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt, facing marital ennui, must deal with the latter’s ailing father. Brian Dennehy is credible in the part, cursing out his doldrums with an end-of-the-line kind of resignation. Photographed in a …
A request arrived to review this documentary about the current polio crisis in Pakistan. First thought: what a lousy time for Lickona to take vacation. The disease was almost under control until the Taliban voiced opposition and, in 2012, placed a ban on vaccinations, effectively turning a campaign to fend …
A natural for a documentary: auditions for a Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, a process that mirrors the original show, provides a privileged peek behind the curtain, introduces and reveals characters, generates sympathy and suspense, all without any special skill in presentation. Directed by James D. Stern and Adam …
Woody Allen's excavation of the musical genre -- not the backstage variety, which is still extant and needs no excavation, but the average-people variety. He does not take naturally to the conventions of the genre. He takes academically to them. Philosophically to them. Archaeologically to them. And the butterscotch candy …
A hardheaded detective, determined to crack an ages-old crime involving two young women who served time for infanticide, becomes emotionally involved with the case. The mystery-movie-of-the-week premise is buoyed by the evenly detailed performances from the four female leads (Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, and newcomer Danielle Macdonald, playing …