Underground Railroad Drama Freedom Is More Interested in Jesus Than Slavery
Using a slavery narrative to advance an unrelated agenda is pretty tasteless, bordering on offensive. The product of an “inspirational” production house, a white director, and an Asian-American...
View ArticleDoc Dukale’s Dream Reveals Hugh Jackman’s Real-Life Coffee-Related Heroism
Actors are accustomed to studying a subject for a brief, intense period and then being treated like experts. Hugh Jackman’s advocacy for fair-trade coffee began with that burst of enthusiasm, but...
View ArticleChilean Martial Artist Marko Zaror Makes Action/Western Hybrid Redeemer Worth...
Though Chilean western/martial-arts hybrid Redeemer may stall whenever it’s not in ass-kicking gear, leading man Marko Zaror is charming enough to make you want to overlook his latest vehicle’s...
View ArticlePlodding Vampire Flick ‘The Stranger’ Is Only for Devotees
Vampirism is treated as a blood-borne illness in Guillermo Amoedo’s The Stranger, but with a mystical twist: A vampire’s sanctified blood contains healing properties. Fans who enjoy cataloging...
View ArticleIngenious Sci-Fi Parable ‘World of Tomorrow’ Tops This Year’s Sundance Shorts
Pity the short films that follow stick-figure-collage artist Don Hertzfeldt’s animated masterpiece World of Tomorrow, both the centerpiece and the first movie presented in the feature-length omnibus...
View Article‘Set Fire to the Stars’ Plays Like ‘Get Him to the Greek’ for Lit Majors
No thinking person will fail to anticipate the story beats in Set Fire to the Stars, an energetic, well-acted, handsomely mounted b&w literary tell-all whose script would be laughed out of the room...
View ArticleEighties Martial-Arts Comedy ‘Dreadnaught’ Is an Irrepressible High-Wire Act
Martial-arts comedy Dreadnaught — screening as part of Anthology Archives’ exemplary This Is Celluloid: 35mm series — is a bizarre, imaginative kung fu film whose talented cast helps transcend its...
View ArticleThe Latest ‘Madame Bovary’ Pits Its Star Against Her Dialogue
The trick with any adaptation of Flaubert’s brilliantly humdrum tragedy: how to make ennui engaging. Director Sophie Barthes has little luck in this latest trek down Madame Bovary’s road to Rouen. Lead...
View ArticlePrankster Yes Men Return and Endure in the Emotional ‘The Yes Men Are Revolting’
Media about climate change is such a bummer that nobody ever pays attention. How do we go on living when we know not only that we’re dying, but that our chance for a legacy — for eternity — is dying...
View ArticleAmbitious, Fantastical ‘Chagall-Malevich’ Is a Messy Look at Chagall’s Life
Russian writer-director Alexander Mitta crams a lot into his fantastical biopic Chagall-Malevich, including the early career of painter Marc Chagall (Leonid Bichevin), the role of artists in the...
View Article‘Artists Get Put in a Box,’ Says Love & Mercy Star John Cusack
When John Cusack was launching his career in the Eighties, Brian Wilson had gone from rock star to living lore — a brilliant Bigfoot. “People would have Brian Wilson encounters,” says Cusack, who plays...
View ArticleSleepy-Eyed French Film Tu Dors Nicole Barely Has the Energy to Get to Its...
Shot in inexplicable black-and-white, Tu Dors Nicole follows a listless young woman over a few hot summer days in her Quebec town. Director Stéphane Lafleur sets the mood effectively: You can feel the...
View ArticleWe Are Still Here Is the Rare Horror Film for Grown-Ups
Instead of the nubile young things who normally populate horror movies, a grieving middle-aged couple is at the center of Ted Geoghegan’s Seventies-evoking We Are Still Here. We meet Anne and Paul...
View ArticleMuddled Thriller Survivor Pits Jovovich vs. Bronson vs. Boredom
There may be nothing less exciting than the intrigue of international visa authorizations, and yet that lame narrative focus is only one of many reasons Survivor is an espionage fiasco. Former...
View ArticleRomance Becomes Unsettling Terror in the Polanski-Inspired Hungry Hearts
Saverio Costanzo unfolds Hungry Hearts as a series of vignettes that veer from romantic comedy to horror. Jude (Adam Driver) and Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) meet-cute while trapped in a Chinese restaurant’s...
View ArticleIn World War I Drama Testament of Youth, Alicia Vikander Is Worthy of Lillian...
With Testament of Youth, our collective poppy-strewn dream imagery of a decimated generation of the gallant young men of WWI — and their noble horses too — might undergo a sea change. Alicia Vikander...
View ArticleUrgent Doc Every Last Child Reveals Pakistanis Standing Up to the Taliban to...
Throughout Every Last Child, voices stay hushed until they are shouting — in pain, in worry, in command. Set largely in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, Tom Roberts’s urgent, tender documentary has...
View ArticleSleepy-Eyed French Film Tu Dors Nicole Barely Has the Energy to Get to Its...
Shot in inexplicable black-and-white, Tu Dors Nicole follows a listless young woman over a few hot summer days in her Quebec town. Director Stéphane Lafleur sets the mood effectively: You can feel the...
View ArticleSkate Bros Face Murder Drama in Dawn Patrol
In a laughable scene in Dawn Patrol, John (Scott Eastwood) passes a joint to his brother (Chris Brochu) while riding a skateboard, and director Daniel Petrie Jr. stages the moment in drawn-out slow...
View ArticleCharlie’s Country Pits the Cops Against a (Real) Down-on-His-Luck Aboriginal...
The special quality of Charlie’s Country is the profound camaraderie shared by its director, Rolf de Heer, and its star, David Gulpilil (Walkabout, The Last Wave). The two have worked together before...
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