Writer-director Daphne Charizani’s moving, originally told tale of women placed worlds apart (but still closely bound) in times of war opens in a Kurdish refugee camp in Greece. Rojda (Almila Bagriacik) arrives hoping to find both her mother Ferhat (Maryam Boubani) and sister Dilan (Gonca de Haas) signed, sealed, and …
Jonah Hill pays a slob assigned the task of overseeing a trio of ill-behaved neighborhood kids. When pseudo-girlfriend Ari Graynor calls, offering intercourse in exchange for coke, Hill takes the children on a wild ride through the urban ghetto. If it wasn’t for plot coincidence, there would be no plot …
If ever there were a film in which nakedness was essential to the plot, it’s this. In the truest sense of the term, pre-code films ceased to exist when the production code was first submitted to studios in 1929. But critic Mick LaSalle rightfully points out the era in Hollywood’s …
Summer, 1910. An impoverished family of cannibals living near the titular beach resort begin to literally have tourists for dinner in a new slapstick romp from Bruno Dumont. When was the last time you saw a comedy of physical absurdism that drew many a laugh from nothing more than its …
First time director Nicole Gomez-Fisher’s amateurish attempt at autobiography takes us on a Sex and the City-inspired journey through a dysfunctional life. (Stop me if you’ve heard this one a few dozen times before.) As her on-screen correspondent, Alexis Fish, Gina Rodriguez (Go For It, The Bold and the Beautiful) …
Working undercover to crack a dope ring, a Vegas cop (Jamie Foxx) unknowingly endangers the life of his 16-year-old son (Octavius J. Johnson) in this subtitle-free Americanization of the 2011 French thriller Sleepless Night. It starts menacingly enough, with ace scumbag-magnet Scoot McNairy dangling a double-dealing relative over home plate …
It took four screenwriters and two directors to extrude this inflated load. Matt (Mike Birbiglia) is a bartender in a comedy club who doubles as a frustrated, painfully unfunny stand-up. Even his girlfriend (Lauren Ambrose) and her chums can't resist talking over Matt's set. A sudden bout with RBD (REM …
A vignette-heavy, character-driven thriller consumed by chatty types who, even as their adventitiously spun stories race to conclude, tempt us to question the veracity behind their rat-a-tat-ramblings. Of all the characters that couchsurfing actress Stephanie (Stephanie Hayes) encounters during the scant 72-minute running time, Gerard (Scott Shepherd) leaps out. His …
An adaptation of writer/director/star John Pollono’s 2013 play about friends enabling friends that spans 30 years. A trio of highly engaging reprobates — Frank (Pollono), Packie (Shea Whigham), and Swaino (Jon Bernthal) — spend the first half of the picture showing the world what a fine breeding ground Manchester, New …
An animated musical morality play for kids about a band of merry Sasquatches who learn to question authority (and the meaning of tolerance) after an abominable human comes to town. Wanting to follow his father’s formidable footsteps into the bregma-bashing profession, Migo longs for the day when he can use …
An animated musical morality play for kids about a band of merry Sasquatches who learn to question authority (and the meaning of tolerance) after an abominable human comes to town. Wanting to follow his father’s formidable footsteps into the bregma-bashing profession, Migo longs for the day when he can use …
A mysterious vortex transports a race of little blue beings, no more than three road apples high, from their magical kingdom to the streets of Manhattan. Hey, kids, wanna hear some filthy smurfing words? "Plot." "Pacing." "Timing." Four smurfing mothersmurfers are given screenwriting credit. It takes forever for nothing to …
Jonathan Levine’s road comedy ends the 15-year drought since movie audiences last had the pleasure of making Goldie Hawn’s on-screen acquaintance. Amy Schumer plays a recent dumpee with two non-refundable tickets to a romantic Ecuadorian paradise. So she decides to invite her judgmental, everythingophobic mother (Hawn) to join her on …
Those expecting two hours of non-stop punches and explosions are in for a rude awakening. Former stuntman-turned-writer/director, Ric Roman Waugh, rocks Dwayne Johnson’s world with a focused piece of genre storytelling that doubles as a dead-on assault against the war on drugs. Under federal laws known as mandatory minimums, Johnson’s …
Yet another film that would not have been given the green light in our current climate. Not because it’s offensive or politically incorrect, mind you, but given the army of service dogs currently working the malls, the running “No Dogs Allowed” gag (voiced to perfection by oracular-tongued Thurl Ravenscroft) would …