A hopeful young pianist on "the C-track" -- conservatories, competitions, concerts -- gets sidetracked when he sits in on stage as a page-turner for his idol, who soon initiates him into the gay lifestyle. The Catalan filmmaker Ventura Pons seems a little hamstrung in the English language, but the directness …
Writer-director Yuriy Bykov’s story about a man who tries to do a good deed and bucks the system in the process. It's Russia — how do you suppose things will work out? Subtitled.
Another in Robert Altman's series of struggles against innate staginess, orchestrated with his usual sloshing fluidity and trickly leaks around the edges, and permeated with his special vision of humanity as a matter of the askew bow tie and the visible lingerie strap. The theatrical source-material this time, set in …
Chinese caper comedy directed by Jiang Tao. In Mandarin.
Von Stroheim, complete with monocle and cigarette-holder accessories, is an insufferable Prussian officer, who upbraids a legless cripple for not rising at the playing of the anthem, who dallies with whatever lady will play along, and who still tries to capture the attentions of the retarded girl in his household. …
Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson fight to out-cute one another, and out-bronze one another, as a still-in-love divorced couple on a Caribbean treasure hunt, in competition with a murderous rapper. Some of the brutality is truly brutal; none of the humor is humorous. With Donald Sutherland, Ray Winstone, Alexis Dziena, …
Ireland post-First World War, mid-War of Independence, then post-That War Too. A small movie of large ambition, even squashingly overlarge. Ireland itself, in cold steely light, comes off well. The actors come off needy. Iain Glen, Julie Christie, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; directed by Pat O'Connor.
A down on his luck publicist gets his lucky break when he discovers a man recently released from a mental health facility looks just like a method actor who refuses to leave his trailer. With the help of a powerful producer, the publicist helps the man become a huge star, …
Manhattan yuppie meets (cute, of course, in the queue outside a restaurant restroom in Vegas) a mystical Mexican católica. And the Hollywood highway crew grades and paves the rocky road of romance. Television star Matthew Perry (Friends) seizes his big-screen big chance without letting go of his sitcommy unsubtlety. With …
Bargain-basement comedy, improvisational in feel, documentary in technique, about a tae-kwon-do instructor (Danny McBride) with a fragile ego and a thin veneer of machismo. Some of the notions seem viable, though they don’t really flourish. With Ben Best and Mary Jane Bostic; directed by Jody Hill.
They've studied the demographics, calculated their risk, and decided to stick out their necks on the bet that the movie audience contains more teenagers than Moral Majority members. The battle lines are drawn straight off, as John Lithgow, with turn-around collar, rants from the pulpit: "If He isn't testing us, …
Spirited remake of the 1984 hit about hormonal teens who face a preacher’s ban on dancing, their liberation coming with the title tune. Dennis Quaid is the grim cleric who hates the devil’s music — funny, if you remember Quaid rippin’ and rockin’ in Great Balls of Fire! Kenny Wormald, …
For better and for worse, this Israeli depiction of the struggle between a Jewish father and his son — both Talmudic scholars, though of decidedly different temperaments — feels like a well-crafted short story. For better: the elegance of plot, the plumbing of character, the reams of intelligent dialogue. For …
Gently jazzy French musical about a girl (Pauline Etienne) who lands a job (or at least a one-month trial period) at a fancy ladies’ shoe factory, just in time to hear the rumor of an impending upgrade (read: downsizing). The songs work better when the subtitles don’t struggle to make …
Pan Anzi directs a Chinese Western. In Mandarin with English subtitles.