Drama Rated PG-13
"…wants to be a cautionary tale about the tantalizing shallowness of the fashion industry, but its heart is more into tantalizing than giving caution."
Drama Rated R
This political drama raises a pertinent question – how much does the public deserve to know about a politician’s private life? – but delivers a poorly considered answer. When the vice president dies, a woman senator (Joan Allen) is selected as his successor. Fighting to stop the appointment is a rabid congressman (Gary Oldman) who
Based on the Philip K. Dick novel, this is your average drug-abuse drama, albeit told in the intriguingly heightened visual style of rotoscoping (the same one writer-director Richard Linklater employed in his philosophical talk-fest Waking Life). Filmed in live action, the images are then painted over by computer for a fluid, dreamlike feel. It’s an
Insufferably arty, this is the French version of a botched Hollywood blockbuster: It’s misguided, self-indulgent and nonsensical. Written and directed by Claude Lelouch (1966’s A Man and a Woman), the movie stars Jeremy Irons as an aging jewel thief with a tendency to black out. He leaves France in a luxury yacht, washes up in
“…a movie about big stars, and about why we slap down hard-earned money to see them on the big screen.”
Despite what some critics claimed, this adaptation of Frank McCourt’s memoir about growing up destitute in Ireland retains the sly humor that enabled the author to survive his childhood (you’ll find it staring right at you when you look into the frowning face of Joe Breen, who plays McCourt as a little boy). At once
Beyond Borders runs on guilt. Occasionally about a tortured romance between a do-good socialite (Angelina Jolie) and a globetrotting human-rights activist (Clive Owen), the movie uses dishonesty, hypocrisy and Hollywood hokum to rub our faces in Third World suffering. Like a famine-relief infomercial with Jolie in the Sally Struthers role, the picture preaches when it
Eschewing the politics behind a 1993 clash between Somali militiamen and U.S. special forces, this battle epic from director Ridley Scott (Hannibal, Gladiator) concentrates on the logistical details of modern warfare. For nearly three hours, the immediate concerns of these grunts – such as how to keep driving an armored car after bits of windshield
Most romantic tragedies turn on contrived, facile melodrama, but the shattering Brokeback Mountain hurts so much because its tragedy feels so true. The movie’s lovers, a pair of cowboys who first meet in 1963 Wyoming (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger), are kept apart by forces that you can feel: prejudice, societal pressure and above all
Drama Rated NR
An earnest but cliched independent effort about a high-school senior and aspiring animator (Dante Basco) struggling to reconcile his ambitions with his immigrant Filipino heritage. Obvious if well-intentioned lessons abound, meaning you’ll probably want to like The Debut more than you actually do.
