Billy Crystal shows us what the private life of an NBA referee might be like if the ref were like Billy: equal time for shtick and schmaltz. Debra Winger is too good for the material, but she has a hard time proving it; William Hickey, as her Kansas father, needs …
Comedy of heartbreak and heartmend, under the imprimatur of producer Judd Apatow, but directed by newcomer Nicholas Stoller, and written by its star, Jason Segel, who envisions for himself the role of a would-be serious composer, cranking out mood music for a network crime drama when he would rather be …
The internet and cell phones have come to Albania, yet that doesn’t keep a blood feud and its archaic rules from tormenting a small town. The bull-brained machismo earns female contempt (“They all act like children”), and a bright teen boy (Tristan Halilaj) desperately wants out. Director Joshua Marston, who …
Science-fiction thriller that takes a good long while to declare itself as such. A grieving mother, Julianne Moore, acting as if this were no less serious a business than The Hours or Far from Heaven, continues to make daily visits to her nine-year-old son's bedroom -- his dresser, his Mets …
Handsomely photographed but pious and simplistic story of the Cristeros, Mexican Catholics who fought back against a government crackdown in the 1920s. It’s never really clear why the bad-guy soldiers take such delight in hanging priests, torturing children, and burning crucifixes. And it’s all too clear why retired general Enrique …
Teenage pregnancy. What to do? "Put it up for abortion" or what? Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue, who did the screenplay for About Last Night, turn their attentions here to a slightly younger set. They hit some key points, in the manner of TV-movies-of-the-week; but without the starting boost from …
Movie or infomercial? Both, convincingly. “Let food be your medicine,” said wise old Hippocrates. Too often, modern food hooks us on salt, sugars, cholesterol, and meat-based protein, causing obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease. Director Lee Fulkerson ate himself back to health by following the advice of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. …
An evenly balanced guy movie and girl movie, and no mushier on one side of the scales than on the other. The attempt to accommodate two movies in one might account for the bloatedness of the project, though in fact the narrative structure seems designed for economy. Kevin Costner, whose …
Magicianly concierge, nonchalantly well played by Michael J. Fox, hankers after a hotel of his own, as well as after the mistress of his financial backer. Facile comedy, fleet afoot, snappy in patter, but never all the way to funny. With Gabrielle Anwar, Anthony Higgins, and Michael Tucker; directed by …
Plausible enough conspiracy theory founded on a couple of established facts: the Nazi experiments with synthetic fuel and the present public mistrust of American oil companies. And an interesting enough chain of events leading from a murder in Beverly Hills to another at the Berlin Wall, with several more in …
A savage journey into the heart of the artist's dream to change the world by making his mark. Savage in part because of its subject: Ralph Steadman, the pen behind the twisted, spattered portraits that served to illustrate Hunter S. Thompson's immersive gonzo journalism. But the real bite comes from …
Three decades in the life of a mental midget (I.Q., 75) who leaves giant footprints on his twisting path, in rather sharp contradiction of the feather-on-the-wind visual motif at movie's beginning and end. The traversal of so much history permits the filmmaker, Robert Zemeckis, to resume his wrong-end-of-the-telescope examination of …
The metaphor of the title — the police station as a lonely sanctuary in hostile territory — is at least as evocative as any of Joseph Wambaugh's Blue Knight-New Centurion-Choirboy metaphors for the modern policeman. A more appreciative eye for the feathered Indian decorations on the station-house walls and for …