Will Forte plays along with his demented dad Bruce Dern’s false notion that Dern has won first prize in the Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes and joins the old man on a road trip from Montana to Nebraska to claim the million dollars. The subject matter should appeal to the On Golden …
As is customary with awareness-raising health documentaries, expect heart-wrenching patient testimonials, statistics stamped across the screen, and even a race for the cure. Director Andrea Kalin’s added twist is a six-doctor band that rocks out against gynecologic cancer. A cry of, “Breast cancer has a ribbon, but GYN cancer has …
Lesson #1: there’s no such thing as a bad story, just bad storytellers. How else does one explain the hypnotic sensation that awaits in this surrealist tale of an ordinary tail-sanding bull handler? Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) works behind the scenes on the rodeo circuit. He’s a traveling man, at heart …
When his ex-boss offers a chance to make “some real money,” fast-talking commodities broker Rory (Jude Law) thinks for about a second — America isn’t working out for him — before telling wife Allison (Carrie Coon) and their kids Samantha (Oona Roche) and Ben (Charlie Shotwell) that it’s time to …
It’s the kind of high end suburban subdivision where if you came home drunk, the cookie-cutter design having you turning a dozen doorknobs before finding home. But who is this mystery man traipsing through this community of unity at all hours with a collapsible bed in tow? A prostitute offering …
For those unfamiliar with the appealingly dark acts of perversity François Ozon (Swimming Pool) has previously taken delight in putting audiences through, this is probably as subdued (though not entirely safe) a point of entry as any. Ozon had me with the virtuosity of his opening nine-minute encapsulation of a …
The year is 1870. Civil War veteran Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) is a news-reader, a nascent member of the broadcast news media, traveling from town to town with a stack of newspapers in his valise, looking to keep American abreast of current events at a dime a head. …
Stories of imperfect parents, broken children, and the toll divorce takes on a family are as common as hand-me-down clothes, but few arouse the firsthand dramatic intensity and heartbreak of Tom Quinn’s The New Year Parade. Sandwiched between a pair of Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade — an elaborate display with almost …
Harvard grad Lucy Neal (Lucy Hale) lives in a beautiful home willed to her by her grandmother, which may explain how she can make a living as a member of a classical music quartet that performs at swanky weddings. Shocked to discover that her boyfriend of four years (Stephen Friedrich) …
Who ordered the Shining-lite? Riding home after an evening of party games with friends set their marital skiff reeling towards the rocks, wife Neda (Niousha Jafarian) insists that for the sake of their infant daughter sleeping in the back seat, her just-drunk-enough-not-to-drive husband Babak (Shahab Hosseini) find a nearby hotel. …
Not a patch on the anarchic insanity the boys got away with while at Paramount, why is it that A Night at the Opera is the one Marx Bros. movie that always gets revived? The musical numbers are oppressive and the laughs frequently clotheslined by director Sam Wood's leaden pacing …
A floating neon triangle of paranormal healing provides the film with its elaborate title. Kosuke Mikado (Jun Shison) has been seeing dead people for as far back as he can remember. His fate changes the day Rihito Hiyakawa (Masaki Okada) appears on scene, not only possessed with the same psychic …
Nightcrawler bolsters a fear that’s rattled my core since first it became clear that digital was here to stay: every schmuck with a video camera thinks they can direct. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Louis Bloom, a determined drifter who taps his inner-video journalist to become a successful network news stringer. …
Raped, beaten, and mistakenly left for dead after witnessing the slaughter of both her husband and newborn child, a young Irish ex-con (Aisling Franciosi) enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker (Baykali Ganambarr) to help hunt down the responsible parties. First, commix a Death Wish tale of revenge with a …
What makes the 1946 adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham bleak tale of life far, far under the big top so unique was the curious combination of director Edmund Goulding (acclaimed for such “woman’s pictures” as Grand Hotel and Dark Victory), the backing of a Hollywood major (20th Century Fox), and …