The "cops of cops" are trying to get the goods on a very bad one. Better-than-average script (by Henry Bean), with a decently complicated plot and decently filled-out personal lives for the characters. It gets a bit pretentious when it extends to and over the psychological edge, and the direction …
A murky exposé of big-bank chicanery, not stopping short of paramilitary hit squads, is only a posturing pretext for some pretty slick thriller maneuvers: the foot chase in pursuit of what turns out to be an empty car; the nifty detective work that reveals the presence and identity of a …
Sparsely plotted sequel to National Velvet, strung together with the most verbose narration heard outside a Jacques Cousteau underwater documentary. Most of its "adult" and common-sensible innovations merely undermine the fairy-tale quality of the original: for instance, the stepfather writing pornographic novels under the pen name "Jacques Delacroix" in order …
Is the structure — Bad News Bears try to win the Internalympics at Google and so get jobs — hackneyed? Yes. Is the comedy spotty? Yes. Is the pacing a mess, with several sort-of funny bits dragging on waaaaay too long? Yes, yes, yes. But viewers of a certain age …
Sydney Pollack's name on a topical thriller offers no guarantee, but it offers at least a promise. A promise, to be more specific, of tweedy dullness and liberal softness: Havana, The Firm, Absence of Malice, Three Days of the Condor. And was Random Hearts a thriller as well? Hard to …
Steve James (Hoop Dreams) spent a year documenting the efforts of a trio of reformed hardcore gangbangers working to bring peace to Chicago’s volatile Englewood neighborhood. Instead of touting sports or rap music as the golden ticket, the “violence interrupters” champion a psychological approach to peaceful coexistence in an urban …
Personal problems of Beautiful People living the Good Life and planning a Dream House in the Trendy Northwest. A loose remake, and a hollow one, of the 1970 French film, The Things of Life. But where Claude Sautet had the dependable Michel Piccoli in the lead, Mark Rydell has Richard …
Remember when your high school teacher would wheel out a 16mm projector and proceed to put the class to sleep with hopelessly unengaging educational films? That at least offered students a vacation from science class, which is more than can be said for the fate of audiences attending Christopher Nolan’s …
Remember when your high school teacher would wheel out a 16mm projector and proceed to put the class to sleep with hopelessly unengaging educational films? That at least offered students a vacation from science class, which is more than can be said for the fate of audiences attending Christopher Nolan’s …
Clea DuVall directs and writes a film about young couples who gather together to tell another young couple that they should get divorced. Kids these days.
Seth Rogen and James Franco leave no “Suk,” “Poon,” or “Dong” unturned in their quest to whack North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. As a vapid entertainment talk show host, Franco fills in the blanks his with more facial tics than a barrelful of Bill Buckley’s and a wardrobe made up …
In his younger days, Perry Lang earned sizable roles in several personal favorites (1941, The Big Red One, Cattle Annie and Little Britches). For decades a director of episodic television, Lang helms this tale of a reporter granted an interview with Him. (And I don't mean George Burns.)