John Carroll Lynch's directorial debut turned out to be 91-year-old Harry Dean Stanton's farewell performance. Death looms large, but don’t expect a downer. As sure and steadfast deliberate as the CG tortoise that closes the picture, it’s no surprise that Lynch’s tribute to the veteran Hollywood character actor is a …
The journey of an ordinary man and his triumphs, written and directed by Venky Atluri. Starring Dulquer Salmaan and Meenakshi Chaudhary
Living alone in Flushing, Queens (and loving it), Grandma (Tsai Chin) couldn’t be any tougher were she Ford-built. “Dad wouldn’t want you to be by yourself,” is the guilt-lure grandson Howard (Eddie Yu) dangles while angling to get her to move in with his family. “He doesn’t have a say,” …
A Ménage-à-trois of Prohibition bootleggers around the Mexican border is played, broad-mindedly, or feeble-mindedly, as simply another contribution to the buddy genre. The strangeness of this unorthodox arrangement is probed no deeper than the dear-me expressions on hotel clerks, real estate agents, etc. The strangest aspect -- the incomprehensible aspect …
Nora Ephron, in a sort of comic counterpart to A Simple Plan, tells what happens to the people, and those around them, who successfully scam the Pennsylvania State Lottery for six-point-four million, but who then must find somebody else to cash in the ticket: a "beard." It isn't pretty, and …
We are dealing with a bona fide case of mistaken identity here. No, we are dealing with a bogus case of fakeout -- a crime story with an apparent innocent (Josh Hartnett) caught in the machinations of two rival gangs, African-American and Jewish, or "Darkies" and "Skullcaps" in copspeak, headed …
A pretty Marine (Zac Efron) returns from un-pretty service in Iraq to seek out the pretty blonde (Taylor Schilling), whose pretty photo he felt was his lucky charm in combat. In pretty Dixie, she is the widow of another Marine, with a pretty son and a still-pretty mom (Blythe Danner). …
Contrived road movie wherein three wounded vets from the Iraq War, strangers to one another stranded at a shut-down airport, drive westbound in a rental car: a latter-generation The Best Years of Our Lives, better thought of as The Forgettable Year of Our Lives. (Sample contrivance: the soldier wounded in …
A man returns from fighting in a war but is prevented from declaring his love for the girl he left behind by his recent physical handicap. Their relationship becomes more complicated when his former sergeant takes a shine to her himself.
Trapped behind enemy lines with only a radio, an American soldier must use his wits to outsmart advancing Nazi troops during the Battle of the Bulge. Inspired by true events.
Her job on the line, a hard living rock journalist/professional groupie (does Toni Colette ever tire of accolades?) is assigned a cover story on her ex: a legendary, famously AWOL Seattle musician. Co-screenwriter Emily Wachtel’s semi-autobiographical debut regularly teeters hard in the direction of chick flick: a BFF to console …
TV director Noah Hawley's first feature stars Natalie Portman as an astronaut who finds life on earth constricting.
Argentinian director Adolfo Aristarain (A Place in the World, a memorable memory film) sets the action against an up-to-the-minute backdrop of his country's economic crisis: a wordy but truly literate, witty, wise, mature, urbane, novelistic account of the forced retirement of a feisty old Leftist professor of literature, long ago …