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 […]
A married couple worn down by years of child rearing look to rediscover the passion that once defined their relationship in Sex Tape. Jay (Jason Segel) and Annie (Cameron Diaz), after a decade raising their two kids, find that sex has nearly vanished from their relationship. Like so many other couples, their lives are now […]
Four hapless citizens try to survive a single night of government-sanctioned lawlessness in The Purge: Anarchy. In the near future, the weight of a growing population threatens the stability of the United States and its capacity to provide services to its citizens. In response, its leaders approved an annual 12-hour period of complete mayhem where anything goes, […]
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 life of the world’s most renowned film critic is examined, dissected and celebrated in the documentary Life Itself. Roger Ebert was a legendary film critic and life commentator. He was a wordsmith extraordinaire who could turn a phrase with the precision and agility of a Grand Prix race car driver negotiating a sharp curve. That wit and […]
Possessed individuals and their exorcisms resurface every now and then in the horror genre. For many reasons, nothing tops The Exorcist for me. It was so expertly done — even for its time — that it tapped into the primal fear of evil and added simple special effects for a chilling experience that has not been matched […]
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 loud, crude, obnoxious woman heads on a road trip with her ballsy, whisky-loving grandmother in Tammy. Tammy (Melissa McCarthy) is a brash, overweight, overbearing, loser. Her demeanor costs her both her job and her husband in a single day. With nowhere else to turn, she heads to her mother’s house, but Mom (Allison Janney) has […]