Don’t blame the Apatow connection for this one. Director Seth Gordon (Four Christmases, Horrible Bosses) steals a few chapters from the John Hughes playbook as he tries in vain to transform Melissa McCarthy into this generation's John Candy. Playing an alcoholic sociopath in a Bozo fright wig, she uses the …
For the first third of its running time, director Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now, Rana’s Wedding) stocks his latest (sorta’) “inspired by true events” stew with a highly affecting, lovingly detailed depiction of a young Palestinian boy wanting nothing more than to form a band in order to help pay for …
A recruitment film of sorts that asks where protest ends and vandalism begins? The elfin Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a group of eco-terrorists, resented the Agriculture Department’s chopping down hundred year old trees to transform into nursery furniture. ELF began by building a drawbridge to block sawmills from gaining access …
A young pregnant woman (KiKi Layne) fights to prove her beau (Stephan James) innocent of a crime he did not commit. If Beale Street could talk, it would no doubt inform Barry Jenkins that film is a director’s medium and suggest that he move his camera back ten feet so …
A cosmetic company employee (Amy Schumer) with subterranean self-esteem sees herself going from "not" to "hot" after a blow to the head deludes her into thinking she’s Aphrodite. One of two things is needed for this single-joke premise to work: a seven-minute running time (as in a cartoon) or a …
From the producers of Underworld and one of the the scripters responsible for Pirates of the Caribbean come...frankly, if that ignominious ancestry doesn’t scare you off, nothing will. After centuries spent battling anonymous creatures, Frank Jr. finds himself in the middle of a confrontation between the gargoyles and the demons. …
What do you get when you combine High School Musical and Twilight? Not much, as evidenced by this bargain-basement big-screen blow up of the even more parsimonious web series of the same name. Lucas Grabeel, Drew Seeley, and Adrian Slade form the goth romantic triangle amidst a deafening, puerile musical …
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 …
Ashamed of her heritage, Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) — the light-skinned daughter of Annie (Juanita Moore), a live-in housemaid employed by a vainglorious actress (Lana Turner) — tries to pass for white. John Stahl’s magnanimous adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s best-selling sudser had proven successful enough in 1934 for Universal to …
Felipe is a man who has spent his life migrating, “Like the doves, like the seagulls.” But his isn’t a stereotypical tale of emigrating to a land where the streets are paved with gold. The 8-month-old son he left behind will soon turn 16, and Felipe has worked hard to …
A trio of Palestinian women — straight-laced and veiled college student Nour (Shaden Kanboura), dauntless chain-smoker Laila (Mouna Hawa), and lesbian DJ Salma (Sana Jammelieh) — share an apartment in Tel Aviv. The two who are party girls find their bookish roommate to be hopelessly square, and she returns the …
The former Soviet Union, 1992: A young turk whisks his high school crush to a clandestine spot and instead of stealing a first kiss, he gifts her with a gun. It’s a formidable shock, but one that never amounts to much as all we’re asked to do for another hour …
Funny enough satire about that tragic juncture in American history where the glitz of “big room” Vegas illusionists was eclipsed by common street magicians. There's a moment where the title character, played by Steve Carell, encounters his childhood idol and inspiration, Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin), in a nursing home. Carrell …
Writer-director Brad Bird picks up right where he left off 14 years ago in terms of both narrative and theme. Narrative: the arrival of The Underminer to ruin the peace and happiness of the Parrs, a family of superheroes that has finally gained those things after years of unhealthy repression. …
Independent from original thinking. Director Roland Emmerich and his band of four co-screenwriters waited 20 years to crap out a sequel, and this is the best they can come up with? Even the updated CG effects effects aren’t an improvement. If Independence Day was, as my predecessor Duncan Shepherd observed, …