The dorky valedictorian of Buffalo Glenn High School reveals in his commencement speech his hidden passion for the head cheerleader. So begins a long night of teen hijinks (or lojinks, better), played for maximum falsity, minimum humanity. With Hayden Panettiere, Paul Rust, Jack T. Carpenter, and Shawn Roberts; directed by …
Game called on account of unwanted displays of public masturbation.
Conformist independent film "written, edited, and directed" by first-timer Julie Davis, who kicks around some girl-talk truths about the search for Mr. Right: "Every guy I go out with is either a troll, a pervert, or a liar." (Etc.) It can be safely recommended exclusively to those who never grow …
Get the margarine; it’s a low-rent Last Tango In Paris. Broodingly handsome gay garbage collector Krassky (Joe Dallesandro) strays from his volatile lover and partner in asepsis (Hugues Quester) and in the direction of Johnny (Jane Birkin), a boyish and beleaguered waitress he encounters working behind the counter of deserted …
A guy comedy with an original angle. A woman’s man with a well-developed feminine side suddenly feels the lack of a male comrade when the time comes to pick a best man, belatedly casting about for a buddy to cultivate. The lapses in taste — no, the eager, steady assaults …
No relation to the cigarette or its famous promo bellhop. Not much relation to comedy, either, as manic Jim Carrey seeks to jazz up this “based on truth” story about a liar, con man and escape artist. He flipped from church-going marriage to brazen ‘70s cruising as a gay party …
A black comedy for whomever Arsenic and Old Lace suffices as a black comedy. The trumpeted preamble -- "This film is based on a true story": a story, so it develops, about a wife's repeated attempts to murder her husband after she discovers he's been tomcatting around on her -- …
Italian drama from director Antonio Morabito.
Vivid literalization of that magical process whereby a book "comes to life." (The book in question "makes Stephen King read like Mother Goose," so you might better say it "comes to death.") Clever enough, but a bit overly drawn out, especially after it abandons the Fifties period of the book …
A Terry Gilliam exercise in excess, as dense, as heavy, as torpifying as a Christmas fruitcake. (Or as Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Brothers Grimm.) The muffled narrative, revolving around an immortal travelling showman, his magic-mirror portal to the realm of imagination, and his deal with the Devil, …
When Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister. As Alice’s behavior …
The feature-film debut of writer-director Dan Harris is a coping-with-suicide comedy, or dramedy at the very most, and lukewarm either way, about the aftershocks of an Olympic hopeful's abrupt exit. Those left behind include Emile Hirsch, a sort of cross between Leo DiCaprio and Clea DuVall, as the unathletic younger …