Taken for what it is — and that includes a final third that comes with its own unique set of loopy, nonlinear terms — this followup from Precious writer-director Lee Daniels does just fine as a smutty sex-and-servitude potboiler that never bores. The 1969 murder of a small-town sheriff in …
Three geeks and a peach “borrow” mom’s car and embark on a cross-country treasure hunt. The prize: the AWOL anew stupid hot girl who lives across the street that our lead dweeb’s (Nat Wolff) been overvaluing since birth. Husky-throated tomboy supermodel Cara Delevingne (IRL everybody wants to pal around with …
If the goal is to remake a bad movie, at least try and do it better. It’s faithful — give or take the nude mud-wrestling scene and ceaseless closing credits — but this make over of Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1973 blockbuster based on the best-selling autobiography of framed Devil’s Island …
Leave it to Pedro Almodóvar to slap a fresh coat of Technicolor enamel on that most reviled made-for-TV variant: the switched-at-birth melodrama. Two mothers, two accidents, and numerous unexpected twists come to a boil in this, the filmmaker’s definitive statement on motherhood, melodrama, and the unhealthy allegiance that’s formed when …
A little cheese on the corporate ladder (Liam Hemsworth), desperate to raise money to pay for his dad’s life-saving operation, accepts the boss’s offer to spy on the competition in this moldy melodrama given a techno facelift. What good is a thriller if the audience is always two-steps ahead of …
The static, surveillance-camera imagery has been replaced by jump cuts and jiggly cinematography, and several of the jolts in this prequel, cleverly set in 1988 at the dawn of camcorders, can be chalked up to nothing more than people piercing the dark silence by screaming “Boo!” Still, if you like …
A nonstop joke machine (Billy Crystal) and his equally overbearing wife (Bette Midler) are forced to spend time with their work-obsessed daughter (Marisa Tomei), son-in-law (Tom Everett Scott), and a trio of estranged grandchildren, all of whom have Dr. Kevorkian on speed-dial. The set-up seemed idiot-proof: stick a pair of …
A simple story, complexly told. After a four-year absence, a man returns to face the wife and daughter he skipped out and to rub eyeballs with his dreaded replacement. By the time director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) and co-writer Massoumeh Lahidji (Certified Copy) get around to revealing the real reason …
Insipidly formulaic overcoming-the-odds tale of a white BBW from New Jersey (Australia’s Danielle Macdonald in her film debut) who dreams of leaving her mark on the sexist world of rap music. The performances are all first-rate — particularly Bridget Everett as Macdonald’s haggard mother — but first time writer-director Geremy …
The nicest guy in Hollywood, Ron Howard, shares a simple, unfettered gander into the life of Luciano Pavarotti. A celebrity biopic by any other name. Howard attempts to put a redemptive spin on the family’s ultimate acceptance of their philandering tenor. After all, where there’s a will, there’s an inheritance. …
It would have been easier to dismiss if it had been the brainchild of a reverent screenwriter pitching an animated remake of Blazing Saddles, instead of a pale echo written, produced, and voiced by the man himself, Mel Brooks. Just 10 minutes into the opening weekend matinee, it became obvious …
The rags to riches story of the first 17 years in the life of soccer superstar Pelé are covered in this painfully routine biopic. Had the writing/directing team of Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist harnessed one-tenth of their real-life subject’s electricity, the picture could have been used to power Wembley …
Ever wonder what it means to be a pelican in the 21st Century? Judy Irving’s first documentary feature since the sublime Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003) finds her still bird watching. It came to pass that Irving’s childhood fascination with California Brown Pelicans dovetailed into this vivid documentary sketch of …