Potential sponsors looked upon Richard Williams (Will Smith) as just another tennis-father, a man whose pride and determination blinded him to the likelihood his daughters Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) had a better chance of managing a Dick’s Sporting Goods than they did becoming the reigning Queens of …
Unaware of her noble lineage, our titular princess is plucked from the convent in which her father placed her and called into service as the royal composer. Her first assignment: a dirge to celebrate the slaughter of the castle mermaid, who just so happens to be her BFF. (The sacrifice …
I entered this spy franchise prequel cold after having called in sick for the two previous installments. Matthew Vaughn once again takes writer-director credit and were one to remove the CG gore effects and the occasional incompatible f-bombs (did they really curse in such a manner at the dawn of …
Two best friends, both in permanent disconnect from their parents, and an ethnic-looking, slightly addlepated urchin positioned to grace t-shirts as this summer’s huggable answer to Napoleon Dynamite’s Pedro, flee home to spend the summer cobbling together a dilapidated cabin in the woods. More Sundance-sanctioned tripe that never should have …
After a string of romantic misfires, Shira (Moran Rosenblatt, she of the deep, pebbly throat) is so certain that Maria (Luise Wolfram) is the end all to unhappiness that, after a whirlwind 3 month courtship, she asks for her hand in marriage. As if tackling a story of queer love, …
A campy, knife-wielding maniac mystery set 40 years in the past gets in the way of what might have been an otherwise provocative romance between low-rent Parisian pornographers: producer Anne (Vanessa Paradis) and her editor/at odds lover Lois (Kate Moran). A leather-enshrouded phantom, armed with naught but a switchblade dildo …
Five fair-haired Norwegians and a bald Swedish ethnographer spend 100 days and 5000 miles charting the Pacific on a balsa wood raft to prove right adventurer Thor Heyerdal’s (Pål Sverre Hagen) theory that South Americans, not Asians, populated Polynesia. Roadblocks to perfection: a second-act encounter with a shark bordered on …
A young boy’s desire for an old-fashioned family Christmas unleashes terror for the holidays. One-third sitcom, two-thirds actors being attacked by toys, elves, and other assorted CG sock puppets, and 100% unwatchable. Not for a second does the viewer fear for any of the characters’ well-being, thanks to director/co-writer Michael …
Krisha Fairchild stars as a woman under the influence of her director’s oppressive stylistic constraint. A silver-haired lioness who has spent the past decade detouring the road to redemption parks before her sister’s home where the Thanksgiving reunion dinner will take place, the tail of her garment flapping precariously outside …
Taylor (Nick Robinson), an 18-year-old virgin with the unstable heart of an old soul, falls for Krystal (Rosario Dawson), a reformed stripper/hooker/addict who comes complete with a hot tempered ex (T.I.) and an adoring, wheelchair-bound teenage son (Jacob Latimore) who’s two years Taylor’s junior. OnTaylor’s side, there’s a wacky mother …
One is likely to find more inside cameo appearances than a mid-period John Landis picture in this affectionate homage to the lowliest genre of them all, the slasher film. Director and co-writer Teddy Chan’s straight out non-PC tale of courage triumphing over adversity follows a clubfooted serial killer (Baoqiang Wang) …
Hollywood generally casts the intellectually challenged in either a pitiable light or one that makes a lack of intelligence look like an advantage. If one must remake a movie, make it a bad one. And then do it one better. That is precisely what director Advait Chandan did with this …
Come for the movie, stay for the message. It’s 1963, and an ambitious prosecutor — and one of the few good Germans in Naziland — thinks it time to finally alert a nation of orders-following, Holocaust-denying Huns to the existence of Auschwitz. Alexander Fehling (imagine a young John Wayne with …
There’s much to admire in indie darling Greta Gerwig’s first solo venture behind the camera, particularly for those willing to overlook colorless screen direction, dialog that thrives on pop culture references, and a pair of running time-padding skits — an anti-abortion pep rally gone wrong and a gym coach assigned …
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 …