The star is Brooke Adams, the director is her actor-husband Tony Shalhoub (who also appears on screen), and the scriptwriter is her sister Lynne Adams (who also appears, also). Sort of a Henry Jaglom-y home movie, or home video rather, and sort of a Christopher Guest-y mockumentary, in which a …
When a fortune teller named The Master (Gordon Lam) crosses path with “born psychopath” Siu-tong (Lokman Yeung), he foresees the young man is destined to murder. Using every feng shui trick in the book to change fate itself, the unlikely duo begins a peculiar song and dance, engulfing themselves in …
In a dystopian Switzerland that has fallen under the fascist rule of an evil cheese tyrant, Heidi lives the pure and simple life in the Swiss Alps. Grandfather Alpöhi does his best to protect Heidi, but her yearning for freedom soon gets her into trouble with the dictator’s henchmen. The …
Marilyn Agrelo's documentary on New York City fifth-graders who've been channeled into the stay-off-the-streets-and-stay-out-of-trouble activity of competitive ballroom dancing: "I see them turning into these ladies and gentlemen," one teacher manages to say while fighting back tears. We follow three disparate classes (only one of which will make it through …
Well, "clinically depressed" love, at any rate. Not to overstate the case. He (Chris O'Donnell) dresses by the code of Seattle grunge, but after all he lives in Seattle, and is otherwise a responsible big brother in a single-parent home. She (Drew Barrymore, tattoos concealed) is a moonlight-jet-skiing, library-book-stealing, school-skipping, …
Unimaginative, undistinctive retitling of Joan the Mad, a tale of passion, infidelity, jealousy, madness, death. A tawdry and commonplace tale, in other words, elevated on the high heels of history and nobility: Princess Joan of Castile and Philip the Handsome of Flanders, ca. 1500. Well-produced, which is to say well-costumed …
An assured and energetic visual style, reliant almost to the point of over-reliance on short tracking shots and quick dissolves, makes this futuristic Born Losers worth watching. It is set not so far in the future as to pose problems of production or imagination for the filmmakers, just far enough …
Self-consciousness must surely be the keynote of the Mad Max sequel, which would appear to have been made in astonished response to the popular and critical approval heaped on the unassuming forerunner, and which, as a result, appears to be much more scrutinizing of itself, much more full of itself. …
The people are called things like Auntie Entity, Scrooloose, The Collector, and Master-Blaster. The last-named is actually two people, a dwarfish genius who rides piggyback on his masked bodyguard, and together they rule the Underworld (or power source) of Bartertown. Auntie Entity, who rules the rest of Bartertown, wants to …
Quick: when you're trying to forge a new civilization from the ashes of the apocalypse, what's the most important element for making sure it endures? That's right: babies. And in a world where the test tubes have all been smashed, if you want babies, you need women: their wombs, their …
Quick: when you're trying to forge a new civilization from the ashes of the apocalypse, what's the most important element for making sure it endures? That's right: babies. And in a world where the test tubes have all been smashed, if you want babies, you need women: their wombs, their …
A demographically diverse trio of women (Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes) are of undivided mind about the wisdom and fun of siphoning off wrinkled old bills, marked for shredding, from the Kansas City Federal Reserve. The director, Callie Khouri, makes a unanimous fourth. A caper comedy heedless of consequences, …
Curiously disjointed and jumpy for something that originated as a theater piece (by Alan Bennett), with little in the way of sustained dialogues and developed scenes. George III of England, but no longer of the American Colonies, is given a distinctive way of talking ("Yes! Yes!" "What? What?" "Hey! Hey!"), …