Imaginative and technically adept retelling of the mad-scientist classic by H.G. Wells. The fabled wit of director James Whale picks its spots, but it's subservient to the painstaking and sometimes painful delineation of what life actually might be like for a man turned invisible with no way back. Claude Rains, …
Leigh Whannell (Insidious: Chapter 3) accentuates the madness in this modern day telling of H.G. Wells' horror classic starring Elisabeth Moss.
"Today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.” This is a documentary about that.
A showcase from director-star Ralph Fiennes, he of the fierce visage and pleading eyes. First, it is a visual marvel — the framing is now theatrical, now unobtrusive, but always masterful and appropriate. Second, it is a triumph of characterization. Nobody makes speeches; nobody has to. Fiennes plays Charles Dickens, …
The enduring cliché here is that a run-on revel, especially one conducted in fresh-air countryside (cf. Rules of the Game, Smiles of a Summer Night), will progressively ruffle the feathers and pluck the feathers of the assembled guests, and will produce dazzling glimpses of their unmentionables underneath. These Swiss clucks, …
Too long since your gut’s had a good churning? The Invitation was sent out for a tight-knit group of friends (and a couple of hand-picked interlopers) to gather at a dinner party that initially had all the makings of a crisis intervention. Crisis, indeed! Arbitration? Not likely. It takes about …
An African-American woman (Nathalie Emmanuel) is invited by a distant cousin to a swanky gathering of the clan. Before the night’s over, there will be blood. Gallons of it.
Michel Franco and Victoria Franco present the story of a desperate mother seeking to repair her son's eyes. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Longing for a brighter future, two Senegalese teenagers embark on a journey from West Africa to Italy. However, between their dreams and reality lies a labyrinth of checkpoints, the Sahara Desert, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean. Directed by Matteo Garrone, starring Issaka Sawagodo, Moustapha Fall, and Seydou Sarr.
Humanistic sci-fi from director Mike Cahill (Another Earth), insofar as it sympathizes with the human longings for both understanding and transcendent mystery. Ian (Michael Pitt) is a scientist seeking an orderly, elegant proof of the random mutations that eventually produced the human eye. Sofi (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) is a manic pixie …
Another of Michael Cacoyannis's essays on the topic, "Is Greek Tragedy Dead?" He argues no, and he persuades you yes. This treatment of the Euripides play, driven drudgily to its foreordained conclusion by an unrelenting timpanist who must have been paid under the table by the aspirin industry, is, if …