Drama Rated NR
French director Claude Chabrol died Sunday at 80. A review of one of his more recent films…
Comedy Rated PG-13
A messy, confused remake of the 1975 feminist horror comedy, in which the housewife-as-automaton metaphor is stretched almost unbearably thin. Nicole Kidman is the headstrong heroine this time around, while director Frank Oz and screenwriter Paul Rudnick stumble updating the material. Kidman plays a ruthless career woman who gets sent to Stepford as her comeuppance,
"A tone-deaf attempt to transplant The Scarlet Letter – or at least its consideration of puritanical judgment – to a contemporary high-school setting."
Drama Rated PG-13
The ruthless, aspiring class president Reese Witherspoon played in 1999’s Election could be a descendant of Becky Sharp, the conniving centerpiece of Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 expose of Victorian high society. Which gives Witherspoon another chance to exhibit the mischievous edge that juts out now and then like her javelin of a chin.
Drama Rated R
Money, money money. That’s what everyone wants in Boiler Room, an often riveting update of 1987’s Wall Street set in the same New York stockbroker scene. You’ve seen this before, but the macho posturing, seductive language and breakneck energy that all go into the art of the sale still fascinate. With Ben Affleck and Vin
Romantic Comedy Rated PG-13
That Debra Messing’s precise comic timing and dazzling demeanor – two qualities of Golden Age comediennes – still manage to shine in this clumsy romantic comedy only distinguishes her underused talent. Here she’s a single woman who hires an escort (Dermot Mulroney) to pose as her boyfriend at her sister’s wedding. The leads have plenty
Comedy Rated R
Indie stalwart Jim Jarmusch (Down By Law, Broken Flowers) unveils an experiment long in the making with this series of black-and-white vignettes, filmed over the last 18 years, of different actors smoking and drinking joe. It’s curious and often funny, even if the performers – including Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett and rappers RZA and GZA
Action/Adventure Rated R
“If anyone wanted to persuade vulnerable young minds to enter the maw of battle, 300 would make a heck of a recruitment video.
The Family Stone, which follows an extended clan over the Christmas holiday, is all over the place in terms of tone, though I guess you could say the same of most actual family gatherings, where laughs and tears often mix. Yet the movie – for all its farce, melodrama and tragedy – never manages any
Thriller Rated R
A misstep for director Sam Raimi, this thriller about a psychic reader (Cate Blanchett) who investigates a murder in her backwoods Georgia town may cover similar territory as Raimi’s excellent A Simple Plan, but it’s as overblown as that naturalistic crime tragedy was understated. Unhappily misused here is a fine cast, including Keanu Reeves, Hilary
