A head-first plunge into nostalgia -- nostalgia for times past (1962), for the American small town (somewhere called Willowpoint Falls), and especially for the sorts of ghost stories that were told prior to Poltergeist (without, that is, gobs and gobs of special effects and a whole menagerie of monsters). The …
The Coen brothers' first-ever "unoriginal" work: a remake of a mid-Fifties British caper comedy by the underappreciated Alexander Mackendrick. In mitigation, the brothers throughout their careers have been so partial to the pastiche -- the neo-noir Blood Simple, the imitation-Hammett Miller's Crossing, the imitation-Cain The Man Who Wasn't There, the …
Director William Oldroyd’s elegantly executed debut feature Lady Macbeth may prove to be the sort of quiet breakout for star Florence Pugh that Martha Marcy May Marlene was for Elizabeth Olsen (as opposed to the more explosive entrance that Jennifer Lawrence made in Winter’s Bone. Pugh’s Katherine, like Olsen’s Martha, …
Fictionalized, and very conventionalized, biography of Billie Holiday, and the inaccuracies will likely leave Holiday worshippers inconsolable. But Diana Ross, in her screen debut, escapes with surprising success from her Supreme mannerisms and burrows deeply, comfortably into her new role — a good effort. Snazzy period hairdos and costumes bolster …
Mystery-comedy on a continental train, with rather too heavy an emphasis (if this isn't a contradiction in terms) on the comedy element — namely on Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the stereotypical Englishmen Abroad. The Hitchcock "touch" is in evidence (the slight irregularity in the nun's garb), but the …
Completion of the "revenge trilogy" of Chan-wook Park, beginning with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and passing through Oldboy. In the final installment, independent of the others, the abstract credits sequence of creeping vine, blossoming blood, and coursing teardrop is a true grabber, and the opening scene doesn't let go: a …
Completion of the "revenge trilogy" of Chan-wook Park, beginning with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and passing through Oldboy. In the final installment, independent of the others, the abstract credits sequence of creeping vine, blossoming blood, and coursing teardrop is a true grabber, and the opening scene doesn't let go: a …
The subject of child molestation sentimentalized and glossed over to a point where you can no longer be sure that that's what the subject indeed is. You would not have to be a bluenose, only an interested spectator, to wonder about such things as what else this reclusive mute gardener …
A Pygmalion tale about a dirty-mouthed, drug-addicted, gang-enrolled Galatea who, after killing a cop, is drafted by a nebulous intelligence agency as a usefully malleable talent. Released back into society as a trained assassin, she embarks in her free time on a girlish romance with a grocery clerk, kept blissfully …
One of Buñuel's two early contributions to the Surrealist cause, when it mattered most. Unlike the other and earlier one, Un Chien Andalou, this one was unavailable to the public for a long time -- five decades or so. It is also much longer than the other in minutes and …
An aimless and emotionally forsaken 20-something (Keira Knightley) desperately in need of deliverance winds up temporarily moving in with one of the minors for whom she illegally buys beer (Chloë Grace Moretz). Luckily, the kid has a hot single daddy (Sam Rockwell). This marks the first time director Lynn Shelton …
Renoir's celebrated WWI reverie on the vanishing aristocracy of blue-blooded military officers and the invincible fraternity of common fighting men. The film is constructed out of some of the most enduring and sentimental truisms about war; it achieves a fair number of unforgettable scenes (a smooth-cheeked young soldier dressing up …
An unrenowned novel by the author of Dracula, previously untouched cinematically, touched now by (worst luck) Ken Russell. The treatment is severely but not fatally infected with the sort of campiness infecting recent treatments of Bram Stoker's more famous work -- but even more so, with a burlesque-skit naughtiness ("Do …