An Irish priest taking confessions is mortally threatened by one of his parishioners in Calvary. Every Sunday brings a litany of never-ending sins confessed to the local priest by his flock of imperfect penitents. Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) has heard it all over the years, but this session is different. The ominous male voice coming from […]
A molecular biologist searches for the answer to a genetic mystery that challenges everything we know about life in I Origins. Geeky graduate student Ian Gray (Michael Pitt) is fascinated by the human eye. Each one is a work of art unique to its host and no one else. His research, not surprisingly, revolves around the […]
A German intelligence officer searches for a Chechen immigrant whom he’s certain will lead him to a deeper terrorist network in A Most Wanted Man. The world’s intelligence communities are dominated by both reality and paranoia concerning future potential terrorist actions. Günther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman) heads up a secret anti-terrorism unit in Hamburg. His main task […]
An obnoxious semiretired realtor has to take new stock of his life when his son unveils a big surprise in And So It Goes. Smarmy but successful businessman Oren Little (Michael Douglas) is looking for one more major real estate deal before he calls it quits. He represents a property with a listing price of $8 […]
Two children and their divorced parents weather the changes of life over a 12-year period in Boyhood. Six-year-old Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) and his eight-year-old sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) live in a simple Texas home with their single, blue-collar mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette). She decides to move the family to Houston for a better paying job and […]
Whenever I think of “talking monkeys,” I immediately call to mind the 1995 movie The Prophecy in which Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen used that term to disparagingly refer to human beings. (I often find that stupid or annoying people whom I encounter are no better than talking monkeys.) This term takes on an entirely […]
As humanity struggles for survival, simians take the first steps toward dominance in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It’s 10 years after mankind infected itself with a fatal virus that was initially designed as a wonder drug for all manner of brain disorders. Instead, it quickly spread across the globe, taking humans to the brink of extinction. Now, […]
A visionary fashion designer and his business-savvy lover revolutionize the fashion industry in Yves Saint Laurent. The second World War took a toll on nearly every industry. Rationing forced companies to make the most of their limited resources, and the fashion industry was no exception. Designs of the era were blandly minimalistic; anything more risked being dismissed as […]
The poorest survivors of a global meltdown fight an oppressive class system aboard a perpetual-motion train in Snowpiercer. The year is 2031. With global warming growing worse 17 years ago, the people of Earth conceived a grand plan to restore the world’s climate. They sprayed the atmosphere with a chemical that, instead of solving the […]
A burned-out music producer and forlorn songwriter work together on a new album, bringing them peace and passion in Begin Again. New York City is no stranger to countless untold rags-to-riches stories and nearly as many rags-to-riches-to-rags stories. Dan Mulligan (Mark Ruffalo) hopes to be one of the few that can turn the corner, adding a […]
An eerily detached loner with a singularly obsessive focus chases after the men who ran off with his car in The Rover. In a dystopian Australia, after a devastating economic upheaval, everyone’s left to fend for themselves for their own daily survival. The collapse turns most of the sparse populace into desperate opportunists or outright bandits. Eric […]
Four young men leave the tough streets of Newark, New Jersey, to create a historic rock sensation in Jersey Boys. They were the biggest rock group in America before another fab four came over from England to rewrite rock history. In 1951, small-time hustler Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) fills an opening in his local band with his golden-voiced […]