Say this much for Anne Rice: she takes her vampires seriously. Even religiously. Not, however, docilely. Neil Jordan's screen treatment of her cultish novel rummages through the received lore as though trying on skirts and blouses, deciding against this one and for that one, and branching out experimentally into unexplored …
A straight-faced-to-the-point-of-being-inert comedy/drama from Germany that won’t leave you rolling in the aisles. Putty-nosed Franz Rogowski stars as the new hire, a drowsy night stocker with prison tats poking out of his shirt collar, riding shotgun on the beverage forklift at a big box store. He learns the ropes, gains …
Pauly Shore gets his head shaved. Insufficient punishment. With Lori Petty, David Alan Grier; directed by Daniel Petrie, Jr.
A dealing-with-tragedy movie (a summer romantic idyll turned violent) with dangerous tendencies toward a Lifetime Channel original. But first-time director Todd Field proves himself to be a true director, cunning in his omissions, his obliqueness, his attention to off moments, his focus on marginal details: the family photos in the …
Cold, abstract, almost hypothetical proposition concerning a couple of mid-level corporate pricks -- a stiff one and a limp one -- who, on an out-of-town assignment, form a pact to avenge themselves on the opposite sex (i.e., "restore a little dignity to our lives"; i.e., "payback"). To that end, the …
Documentary covering the history of one of the first progressive rock albums, King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King.
Disappointing for a Jane Campion film, but a cut above the general run, nonetheless. An erotic thriller by type, adapted from a best-seller by Susanna Moore, it leaves something to be desired in both potential areas of excitation. Perhaps surprisingly (for Campion, again), the woman-in-peril plot looks about as lowbrow …
A day at the spa ends in tragedy for Katja (Diane Kruger) when she returns home to find her husband and young son have been blown to hamburgers by a Nazi-rigged explosive device. (What is the respected grieving period before it’s okay for a widow to start plotting her revenge …
A big hit at last year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival finally gets a well-deserved theatrical release. After losing one of his two dads in a car accident, a young boy quickly becomes the focal point of a fierce custody battle after the will grants his aunt sole custody. You’re …
Two elite extraction specialists and their handler are hired to execute a high-stakes, seemingly impossible heist to steal back a stolen billion-dollar fortune from a ruthless despot, erupting into a deadly game of strategy. Directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal.
First, the good news: director Ron Howard does right by the whale in this story of the true story behind the greatest fish story of them all, Moby Dick. In contrast to nearly everything else — characters, action, themes — the massive marine mammal is presented clearly, potently, and without …
While traveling in the Deep South, Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a black Philadelphian homicide detective, becomes unwittingly embroiled in the murder investigation of a prominent businessman. Finding the killer, however, proves difficult when his efforts are constantly thwarted by the bigoted town sheriff (Rod Steiger). But neither man can solve …
While traveling in the Deep South, Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a black Philadelphian homicide detective, becomes unwittingly embroiled in the murder investigation of a prominent businessman. Finding the killer, however, proves difficult when his efforts are constantly thwarted by the bigoted town sheriff (Rod Steiger). But neither man can solve …