By Dana Vachon 3/21/12 12:12pm

The Transom

Ms. Judd

The Ecstasy of Agony: Ashley Judd at the United Nations

Ashley Judd broke from the selling of maternal wrath and vengeance—the primary plot-drivers of her new prime-time spy caper, Missing—to visit the UN last week and discuss her celebrity recovery and humanitarianism memoir, All That Is Bitter and Sweet.

It describes a youth marred by rape and abuse, an adulthood plagued by thoughts of suicide, paralyzing depression and pervasive hopelessness. And the path of healing that led her to work on behalf of such sufferers of the Global South as Congolese rape victims, Cambodian orphans and Bangladeshi sex slaves.

“I believe the patriarchy is not men,” Ms. Judd told her eager audience. “Patriarchy is a system in which both men and women participate.” Read More

By Rex Reed 9/21/11 12:08am

movies

Freeman.

Dolphin Tale is Something Fishy

Three things that make everybody happy: Christmas, ice cream and dolphins. A delightful new family film called Dolphin Tale is not a Christmas story; it takes place in Florida, so you wouldn’t know it even if it was. But you get everything else, and the way things are going at the movies these days, two out of three ain’t bad.

This is the kind of movie with end credits for days, postproduction edits for years, and nobody cares. What matters is how lovable the dolphin is, and on that score everyone can rest easy. Read More

By Una LaMarche 8:49am

movies

Flypaper.

Heist Comedy Flypaper Throws Out the Tired Movie Tropes, But Nothing Sticks

Every once in a while a movie comes along that is so bad it makes you feel terrible for everyone involved. Flypaper, a new indie that’s little more than a haphazard assemblage of clichés, clunky camera tricks and cringe-worthy dialogue, is just such a film. Directed by Rob Minkoff (best known for Disney’s The Lion King and the Stuart Little movies, but out of his depth in live-action adult fare) and written, presumably on a bender, by The Hangover scribes Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, Flypaper tries extremely hard to be a zany bank heist farce-slash-mystery, a kind of whimsical cross between Ocean’s Eleven and Clue. And while it may succeed in theory, it fails—spectacularly—in practice. Read More

By Rex Reed 6:12pm

Not Born in the U.S.A.

Crossing Over
Running time 113 minutes
Written and directed by Wayne Kramer
Starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Alice Eve, Alice Braga, Cliff Curtis, Jim Sturgess, Summer Bishil

Crossing Over is another of those multilayered movies with myriad plots cross-cut editorially in ways that sometimes seem confusing until Read More

By Spencer Morgan 8/29/08 5:26pm

At DNC Vanity Fair Party, Chevy Chase Gets McCain’s VP Choice Wrong; Ashley Judd and Jamie Foxx Boogie Down

DENVER—"There’s my girl!" Chevy Chase bellowed as Madeline Albright walked into the backroom of the Vanity Fair-Google party on Thursday, August 28. The towering comedian, who was clad in a blazer, T-shirt and jeans, bent down to embrace his old friend. They discussed plans to get together—Mr. Chase promising an e-mail from "his people"—mugged for Read More

By Rex Reed 5/29/07 7:08pm

Paranoid Pap

BUG
Running time: 102 minutes
Directed by: William Friedkin
Written by: Tracy Letts
Starring: Ashley Judd, Harry Connick, Jr.

Today’s movies are often filled with paranoia, and sometimes they get too schizophrenic for coherence or comfort. But a movie that is about nothing but paranoid schizophrenia from start to finish Read More

By Sara Vilkomerson 10/23/06 12:00am

TEST: Beatty! No! The Other One!

Last Wednesday morning, the actor Ned Beatty gently moved aside a woman’s purse to sit down on a couch in a midtown Manhattan hotel.

“Women always have more stuff,” he said. “I should know—I’ve been married to a few of them!”

The 69-year-old actor, white-haired and barrel-chested in a striped shirt and corduroy blazer, has Read More

By Sara Vilkomerson 10/16/06 12:00am

Beatty! No! The Other One!

Last Wednesday morning, the actor Ned Beatty gently moved aside a woman’s purse to sit down on a couch in a midtown Manhattan hotel.

“Women always have more stuff,” he said. “I should know—I’ve been married to a few of them!”

The 69-year-old actor, white-haired and barrel-chested in a striped shirt and corduroy Read More

By Noelle Hancock 10/27/03 12:00am

Eight Day Week

Wednesday 22nd

No more Newlyweds ?! Is there any point to fall? Oh, so what if Jessica’s a moron, and the supposedly “smarter” Nick is sucking honey from a beehive he just bombed with Raid, and there’s something immensely creepy about her dad, with his horrible highlight job, standing monitoring his daughter’s stiffening nipples Read More