Julianne Moore, the non-stop queen of the low-budget indie-prod business, is back. She’s made so many movies I’ve lost track of them. (The Internet lists 71 entries in 28 years, five scheduled for 2013 alone.) Most of them are real dogs, but she’s always the best thing in them. Known for playing doomed, tortured or Read More
Apparently I’m not alone in my growing disgust with movies glorifying the physical and mental abuse of people in general and the butchering of women in particular. I had nightmares following the news of the three kidnapping victims in Cleveland who escaped unspeakable horrors after being imprisoned by a maniac for a decade. But I Read More
What Richard Did, not to be confused with What Maisie Knew, is a tender, concisely written, sensitively acted and carefully directed film from Ireland about the devastating consequences of a senseless act of violence on the life of an otherwise gentle boy with a promising future. It doesn’t have big stars or an extravagant advertising Read More
This not-so-thrilling espionage thriller begins, like half the thrillers these days, with a bank robbery. The scene shifts from a safe deposit box in Belgium to the global affairs department at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It is never clear what one thing has to do with the other, and it is even foggier what Read More
The dependable Australian actor Guy Pearce is always welcome, even in a well-meaning dud like 33 Postcards. Versatile and unpredictable, he’s played to perfection everything from a flamboyant drag queen in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to a tough Los Angeles homicide detective in L.A. Confidential. In the Chinese-Australian co-production 33 Postcards, he turns up Read More
Two horror flicks open this week after making the film-festival rounds, both more horrible than horrifying. Enter at your own risk.
Aftershock is the latest shlockfest from cult actor-director-producer-writer Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever), directed by Chilean horror icon Nicolás López. It features an assault of grotesque tortures, atrocities and slaughters of sexy Latino women Read More
Let’s face it. The Great Gatsby never has been—and probably won’t ever be—successfully turned into a great motion picture. Many have tried (four flop movies, not to mention various small-screen attempts, including a truncated but memorable Playhouse 90 with Robert Ryan and Jeanne Crain in the golden days when TV still knew what quality programming Read More
Just what we need—another sophomoric, oversexed vampire movie. You can’t accuse writer-director Xan Cassevetes of lacking imagination. Well photographed, lurid enough to cause concern for the teen market it aims to captivate, and with enough blood to refurbish an abattoir, Kiss of the Damned creates an eerie, foreboding anxiety that comes uneasily close to terror. Too Read More
One of the most versatile and magnetic actors on the screen today, Michael Shannon has established such a reputation for playing twisted, violent and unpredictable characters that it comes as no surprise to see him dominate the screen as real-life Jersey City serial killer and mob hit man Richard Kuklinski in The Iceman. It’s a Read More
Acutely observed, subtly but sharply written and expertly acted, What Maisie Knew transports Henry James’s 1897 novel to contemporary Manhattan with warmth, intelligence and grace, thanks to Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the astute directing team responsible for the devastating 2001 film The Deep End. This one is just as good, and is equally unforgettable. Read More
