A John Sayles film, not to be confused with (much less to eclipse) the same-named Vietnam-era soap opera about POW wives, directed by Mark Robson. This one starts out with the standard Sayles pitch, strong on human interest, supported by sociological and geographical interest, and delivered with the familiar blend …
Chaplin's sentimental salute to himself, in the role of an aging vaudevillian still bursting with creativity, charity, sagacity, and dignity. Astoundingly self-glamorizing, voluminously talky, almost totally unhumorous. Its chosen vein is pathos, and it is undoubtedly pathetic in one sense or another. Made in 1952, but it looks closer to …
Modestly budgeted revenge tale (somewhat thin, hollow, tinny sound) about a British ex-con, just out of prison after a nine-year hitch, who comes to L.A., tossing around uncomprehended slang such as "nicked" and "scarpered," to look into his daughter's death. The resurrection of the Terence Stamp character from Kenneth Loach's …
A preening, fairly addictive movie about addiction. Bradley Cooper is Eddie, a blocked New York writer who takes mystery pills from an untrustworthy man. They give him fabulous powers, and Manhattan becomes the cracked mirror of Eddie’s rise to power. Of course, his real drug is ego, and Cooper achieves …
In form a thriller, this feels more like an endurance test: so far-fetched, so encoded, so self-indulgent, it’s not apt to stir much curiosity or hope of satisfaction. Yet even though the course of action — from Madrid to Seville to the Spanish hinterland, in the company of a stone-faced, …
In Rome during the 1970s, Clara and Felice have just moved into a new apartment. Their marriage has reached a point of no return: they no longer love each other, but they can't seem to leave each other either. Their children are the only thing that keeps them together, the …
Four score and 150 minutes ago, Steven Spielberg shifted into his John Ford mode with this giant, myth-bolstering Golden Book of a movie. As the Civil War rages on, we open with a moment lifted from Saving Private Ryan: a shorter, but equally anonymous massacre. Inasmuch as it fails to …
Dance! Dance! Dance! Or, watch other people dance!
As a smart, dressy, but not upscale lawyer whose main office seems to be his Lincoln (a very L.A. touch), Matthew McConaughey has a career high. He defends a pretty-boy heir (Ryan Phillippe, having his own peak) who is into sordid kinks with prostitutes. That torques into an old murder …
Linda Ronstadt was the first female artist to leave an otherwise male band hot on the heels of a hit to launch a solo career. A lyric from the Stone Poneys tune that put her on the map foreshadowed the key to her success: Ronstadt was not about to have …
Alex Wolff stars as Tom, a scholarship student desperate to break free from his working-class background who is charmed by the prestigious KNA fraternity's promises of high social status and alumni connections that open doors. But upon beginning a romance with Annabelle (Halle Bailey), a classmate outside of his social …
Crime drama wherein a group of police officers lose their undercover identities. Director: Jazz Boon. Stars: Nick Cheung, Louis Koo, Francis Ng.