Traitor or patriot? By now, audiences have made up their minds about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and no movie — particularly a made-for-TV documentary erroneously released into theaters — is going to change them. Director Laura Poitras tries for an occasional jab between the love taps: a pair of rape …
In the not-too-distant future, a retired jewel thief in the early stages of dementia is given a robotic servant by his children. The gift is intended to place the kids' minds at ease while at the same time assisting the old curmudgeon through his golden years. Initially resentful, Dad warms …
Executive producer Dexter Fletcher stepped in to complete Bohemian Rhapsody after Fox relieved chronic no-show Bryan Singer of his directorial duties. Next up on Fletcher’s rhapsodical Bohemian biopic docket: Sir Elton John (played with assurance by Taron Egerton). What with our subject still alive and kicking, the AA meeting that …
The opening shot is a film’s calling card, an image of introduction. Writer-director Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo doubles down by kicking things off with a pair of tempting curtain-lifers. A steady drip of looters emerges from a good-sized home in an Argentinian Province. The pending coup won’t be made official until …
When asked why he chose Ricardo Baca as the world’s first pot columnist, Greg Moore, editor of The Denver Post, offered, “He had covered the music scene for many years, so we knew he was familiar with marijuana.” Thus begins Mitch Dickman’s lively documentary on the paper’s never-before-attempted stab at …
If a film were to be judged solely on its opening shot, Roma would handily deserve all of this year’s best picture honors. Alfonso Cuarón’s curtain-raising quest to eke poetry out of life’s most mundane corners consumes but three minutes of a 135-minute running time. It’s a brilliant setup for …
We open on our titular character reading along with an affidavit as it is spelled out across the screen, a thudding note of cinematic redundancy that sets the tone for what was to follow. Denzel is great, Denzel is good, let us honor Him with sainthood. The Equalizer brought him …
Ronnie Scott was a British saxophonist who, in 1959, at the height of his popularity, chose to open a jazz club rather than make the rounds of various performance venues. A natural showman, Scott nevertheless lacked the entrepreneurial savvy needed to make a go of it alone. That’s where business …
The Shining is my go-to Stanley Kubrick film. But after numerous viewings, thoughts of Native American genocide, Hitler’s ovens, and/or the director helping to fake the Apollo moon landing have never once come up for discussion. Listen to the filmmakers, and Room 237 is a black eye to serious film …
What do you get when John Wayne dusts off his Oscar®-winning role as Rooster Cogburn only to play Charlie Alnut opposite Katharine Hepburn's 70-year-old virgin? True shit.
Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald had a lot in common with black people. White America didn’t like him. This deferential doc tells his story. In his mind a fellow member of a “despised minority,” the Sears CEO and civil rights champion, among other things, joined forces with Booker T. Washington to …
For his first stint in the director’s chair, topical tummeler Jon Stewart brings a lightweight TV sensibility to journalist Maziar Bahari’s autobiographical tale of being held prisoner by the Iranian government for 118 days. A winsomely progressive member of the news media (Gael García Bernal), who uses his camera to …
What happens when a male stripper performing at a Miami Beach bachelorette party is accidentally killed and the whole thing played for sick laughs? In a perfect world, Peter Berg, writer-director of the very good Very Bad Things, steps in and sues the pants off Sony Pictures and Lucia Aniello …
Australia, “ten years after the collapse” and 35 years since Mad Max first turned the outback into what’s proven to be the quintessential stomping ground for post-apocalyptic mayhem. Guy Pearce stars as a solitary former soldier determined to retrieve his stolen car from a gang of malignant ne'er-do-wells. Taking a …