Videos of ebullient students learning they’ve been accepted to the college of their choice set the stage for this tough exposé of universities that betray rape survivors by not leaping to their defense. Documentarian Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Outrage) relies on testimonials from rape survivors and …
Thirty years ago, Michael Caine and Steve Martin mugged their way through the slapstick guesswork of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Frank Oz’s lead-footed remake of Brando’s nadir, Bedtime Story. Lower your expectations - gosh only knows the filmmakers did when they set Anne Hathaway (the actress Nikki Swift dubbed “Hollywood’s most …
Bill Murray goes fishing for Oscar in shallow water. In the Spring of 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt (Murray) was the first-ever president to host British royalty on American soil. The weekend shindig was thrown at the title locale, F.D.R.’s home in upstate New York. Chin jutting, cigarette holder pointing northward, …
Big Bird was Sesame Street’s first break-out character. Forty years spent masking his Prince Valiant haircomb beneath fleece and plumage has afforded Caroll Spinney — the "I" in I Am Big Bird — the unbelievable good fortune of playing one of the most recognizable characters on the planet while retaining …
Commie propaganda has never had a champion capable of rising to the cause in a manner as distinctly and visually sumptuous as Mikhail Kalatozov’s (The Cranes are Flying). Politically facile? You bet! Sexually on par with Hef’s Playboy philosophy? Damn straight! But with images such as this, who has time …
Local music icon Brook Hyde (Dominic Bogart) is not happy unless he’s miserable. Parties bore him and promotional interviews quickly turn ugly. Hyde uses the woes of the world and the incognizance of others as shields to deflect the insufferable success that is his. Temporary relief arrives in the form …
The review should have been filed last week when the film debuted, but after learning it was a sequel — and given my anal-retentive bent — a look at the original was crucial. Pro-wrestler-turned-marquee-aspirant Stu Bennett’s gamble paid off with this followup to director Ross Boyask’s British thriller. (British thriller? …
There was a point in America’s history when you couldn’t enter a supermarket or flip the radio dial without hearing Helen Reddy's titular tune. I clicked on the screening link expecting to find another biodoc, but to my delight, what I watched was neither a rock concert pawning itself off …
Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) has what it takes to become the court-appointed guardian to a galaxy of unwitting seniors. From her hairstyle — a cascading pageboy with bamboo cutting board earflaps — to the determined heels against marble click-clack in her approach, every move is calculated to intimidate, to beat …
Michael Shannon is incapable of delivering anything but brilliance, and all too often, the success or failure of one of his pictures hinges on a filmmaker’s ability to meet him halfway. Ariel Vromen (Rx, Danika) isn’t quite there yet, as evidenced in The Iceman, a true-crime mob movie based on …
With less than thirty hours to save the twenty-six excavators trapped in a diamond mine cave-in, it’s up to Mike (Liam Neeson) and five other truckers to undertake a suicide mission by transporting, across the coldest region of Canada, three trucks containing the wellhead needed to save the day. Chances …
I haven’t seen enough of British director Ken Loach’s movies, but the few that have come my way (My Name is Joe, Sweet Sixteen) struck me as good examples of finely crafted social realism. Alas, this time around, Loach and his habitual screenwriter Paul Laverty are working in moral black …
I sensed trouble the moment the picture opened: with a police officer — banging down the door of a violent felon accused of beating up a hooker — turning to the victim and cracking wise about a pair of Chanel loafers. Perhaps twenty-five years ago, this “my gay dads” comedy …