One had hoped that the talented Alexandra Daddario would be remembered as something more than the comely actress whose topless scene in True Detective crowned her Queen of GIFs. The talented Alexandra Daddario has tried her hand at roles in genre pictures — the replacement squeeze in Joe Dante’s singular …
Get lost for 2 ½ hours in this lively saga of a journalist who snubs his profession in favor of nobility only to find journalism the most noble calling of all. Lucien (Benjamin Voisin), a young printer’s apprentice with ink in his veins and delusions of propriety on the brain, …
For decades, rock ‘n’ rollers have been characterized as hard drinking, snorting, and/or shooting stars whose desire to self-medicate was driven by a hunger to reach the heights of creative nirvana. Drugs were offered as the crutch essential to prolonging their genius. Now, there’s a new medicament in town: antidepressants. …
On occasion, a filmmaker takes great pleasure in shining a light on historical figures so overlooked that they barely cling to the margins of history. From birth to death, it takes four actresses to play the part of the first female shrink. Her brushes with greatness — women's rights activist …
Prior to his enlisting, a young carpenter’s (Kévin Azaïs) only brush with the military was showing up at recruitment center drives to load up on door prizes. Then one day, the complaisant lad decides to follow the daughter of a client – the survival-driven, sardine-smoothie guzzling doomsday prophet of his …
“Documentaries are TV shows that no one watches,” Leilani (Issa Rae) fires back at her husband Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani), a documentarian who fancies himself a “social activist.” No sooner does the couple decide to cancel their four-year relationship than they’re witnesses to murder. That leaves the filmmakers with two mysteries …
The film version of My Fair Lady is a ceremonious bore, and the viewer has Cecil Beaton’s pompously sedentary, open-casket visual compositions to blame. (He was endowed — by the studio and Audrey Hepburn — with the power to basically call “cut” on George Cukor’s set.) Vogue magazine’s Hamish Bowles …
Director Jill Andresevic presents five real-life romantic relationships, in various states of progression, played out against the backdrop of five New York neighborhoods. From the teenage couple experiencing romance for the first time to 79-year-old Albert coming to terms with his wife's dementia and many relationships in between, the results …
Call me downturned crabby, but I can’t bear 90% of the current spate of British costumers. Restless leg syndrome began tapping out an SOS just moments after the condescendingly- captioned photoplay credits hit the screen. Pictures of fancied up actors reciting Jane Austen’s prose, lit by a team of Allied …
At a very young age, Gilda Radner learned how to ward off playground jerks looking to turn her weight into a subject of ridicule. “Comedy is hitting on the truth before the other guy thinks of it,” were words she lived by, and a reliance on self-deprecating humor became a …
A Danish cancer patient (Trine Dyrholm) catches her husband diddling a co-worker two days before they’re set to leave for their daughter’s Italian wedding. In the eyes of the audience, that frees her up to undertake an affair with her kid’s future father-in-law (Pierce Brosnan). A supposedly heartwarming comedy that …
Life’s circumstances cause a recently married gay couple (Alfred Molina and John Lithgow) to seek temporary housing with relatives while looking for a new place to live. Lithgow is deposited with Marisa Tomei and her maladjusted teenage son while Molina lands on the couch of a pair of hard-partying cops …
When Andrew Sarris classified a chapter of his Pantheon-defining "The American Cinema" as “Subjects for Further Research,” he had filmmakers like Kinuyo Tanaka in mind. The celebrated actress, known for her collaborations with Kenji Mizoguchi (Sansho the Bailiff, Ugetsu, The Life of Oharu), was also the second woman in Japanese …
When was the last time the sight of two men kissing on screen wasn’t greeted with either uncomfortable laughter from the audience or caterwauling rumbles of disapproval? The curtain-lowering same-sex kiss that closes Love, Simon, will leave viewers cheering. “I’m just like you,” are the first words closeted high schooler …
Where do I begin? “Death Story,” as it came to be called, was the film that introduced Hollywood’s concept of a “set-’em up-to-watch-’em-die” picture to my then-15-year-old brain. The script originally called for the movie to open with the doctor bluntly informing Oliver (Ryan O’Neal) that his young bride Jenny …