Amiable Phil Rosenthal, having created the hit show Everybody Loves Raymond, went to Moscow to help craft a spinoff copy, Everybody Loves Kostya. Smart but sometimes clueless (taken to a Russian military museum, he can’t relate), he felt frustrated by a culture gap in humor, intrusive bosses, miscasting, etc. This …
No potboiler by Jacqueline Susann or Harold Robbins or one of their relatives has ever lurched faster and farther into daydream improbabilities. And none of those, furthermore, has had the indecency to drag in Goethe and an analytical note on him by Leslie Fiedler. Writer-director James Toback, who somewhat resembles …
Grind-it-out sports bio on Ernie Davis, the running back who took over Jim Brown’s position and jersey number at Syracuse University and went on to become the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy. Good efforts from Rob Brown in the lead role and Dennis Quaid as his old-school coach, …
Meerlapaka Gandhi directs and co-writes a story about puppy love, er, love and puppies.
Luis Buñuel in his most cryptic mood: no clues and no clarifications. The elegant party guests in a high-rent Mexico City neighborhood adjourn to the living room after dinner and, for days following, are unable to leave the room, and are fitfully perplexed and exasperated by their peculiar inability. Buñuel …
Mike Judge, the Office Space man, never mind the Beavis and Butt-head man, goes blue-collar at a food flavoring factory, where his fund of observations of workers on the job proves skimpier. The owner and central character comes close to a complete cipher, although Jason Bateman’s flat-tire facial expressions serve …
The filmmaking team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, after the mainstream excursion of The Nanny Diaries, return to the alternative cinema — home of their American Splendor — with a vengeance: a kooky comedy about a transvestite aspiring writer (creepmousy Paul Dano) taken under wing by an aging …
Kirk Cameron (Like Father Like Son) returns... but not as the real-life marathon runner and college professor trying not to let a bum knee get in the way of a race. That honor goes to Leland Klassen. Here's hoping that this time the terms faith-based and artistically bankrupt don't go …
Never has a title been so far off base. Open on a paranormal-detective VHS tape badly in need of tracking. Cute. Flash-forward a couple of decades to find Rose (Maeve Higgins) and her sister Sailor (Terri Chandler) looking down upon the grave that their father, the ghost-hunting star of the …
Comedy-action flick about a former movie extra who reveals the story of how he became a smuggler and, eventually, vigilante hero. Directed by Vakkantham Vamsi and starring Nithiin, Sreeleela, Dr. Rajasekhar, Sudhev Nair, and Rao Ramesh.
Pedestrian disease-of-the-week movie (Pompe Disease by name, a form of muscular dystrophy), typically “inspired by true events” and aptly produced by CBS Films. Giving it big-screen cred is Harrison Ford as the crusty Cornhusker who provides the breakthrough in treatment: a bass-fishing eccentric at the University of Nebraska, listening loudly …
The Man, the Marvel, the Movie! A tribute documentary from Jonathan Josell.
From the Philippines comes this "sexy action-comedy" about a trio of female super agents working undercover as massage therapists. What will they think of next? Chris Martinez directs.