No you won’t. From Jessie Nelson, the man who brought us Stepmom, I Am Sam, and Fred Claus...need I go on? Staler than year-old rum cake and louder than June Squbb’s holiday sweater, Hollywood yet again ushers in the Christmas season with a dysfunctional family racing to get it together …
This week’s dollop of Oscar-bait is a well intentioned account of the marriage and subsequent incarceration of an interracial couple in 1958 that led to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn state laws prohibiting mixed marriage. With the fact-based outcome predetermined, it’s up to the storyteller to make the journey …
What has more masked participants than an Eyes Wide Shut Halloween orgy? Lucha libre! Directors Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz play up the local color, moving from arena to arena in pursuit of today’s biggest names in the CMLL, Mexico’s World Wrestling Council. (The last half hour of my life …
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 …
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,” …
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 …
Ila’s (Nimrat Kaur) recipe to buck up her marriage falls into the wrong hands when a delivery boy mistakenly hands over a four-course lunch (equipped with a spicy billet doux for dessert) to a lonely government employee (the exceptional Irrfan Khan) who is just weeks away from retirement. Writer-director Ritesh …
The promise of a Polish musical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tenebrous fairy tale The Little Mermaid, set against the backdrop of a happening ‘80s strip club, proved too good to be true. Director Agnieszka Smoczynska acknowledges a side of the author that Disney dare not touch — “Mommy, how …
What’s a luzzu? A traditional Maltese fishing boat, an opalescent vessel bedecked in polychromatic hues with two eyes poking out from the bow. Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu is a modern day neorealist masterpiece. Alone, in a sea of nowhere, Jesmark (Jesmark Scicluna) carefully unloops a net in the water that is …
A 75-minute crash course on the 62-year-old singer, poet, and performance artist for those, like me, familiar with the name but not the work. You’ve heard of New Wave? Lydia’s aggressively insane contributions to music — she champions “unlistenability and unpopularity” — fall under the category No Wave. It’s a …
The venue flips from high school Animal House to sure-fire slaughterhouse after a vengeful veterinary assistant converts her garage into a niteclub for underage teens. Fifteen years in the business, with forty features and dozens more television credits behind her, it took The Help to finally turn Octavia Spencer into …
It's 30 going on 70 when a big, freaky Friday weekend in Palm Springs goes vice versa after young Mack (Elizabeth Lail) enters a past life regression pod (aka a tanning bed) only to magically (read: inexplicably) emerge as her senior self, Rita (Diane Keaton). (Mack’s skin-tight leggings do wonders …
A magician (Simon McBurney) asks a lifelong friend and arrogant rival illusionist (Colin Firth) to help debunk a captivating young spiritualist (a regrettably miscast Emma Stone). Set in 1928, there’s bewitchment in production designer Anne Seibel’s ritzy period recreation and Darius Khondji buffed ‘Scope cinematography, but Woody Allen doesn’t have …