There’s nothing wrong with going to the movies just to be swept up in a story, even when the story is fairly unrealistic. If that’s your aim, The Longest Week might be a good way for you to spend about an hour and a half this weekend. The film, starring…
Cymbeline is the misunderstood schoolchild of Shakespeare’s plays, the misfit who speaks up at odd times and sometimes says the wrong thing, awkward in all kinds of obvious ways. It’s a special-needs play, but the beauty of it is right there in its bones, not least because in it we…
The beginning of David Mackenzie’s U.K. prison drama, Starred Up, might make you wonder if you’ll survive to the end: We see a kid with a hard-eyed, shutdown face being matriculated at a new jail — apparently, he’s outgrown his old one, and so he’s been “starred up,” or prematurely…
Even the most inspiration-averse will have eyes as moist as blowholes by the end credits of Dolphin Tale 2, a good-hearted kids’ drama whose earnestness and surprising moral complexity put other sunny-weepy sea-mammal flicks to shame. After the story wraps up, the filmmakers work a trick that’s become common in…
The Drop, the richly textured, beautifully acted film collaboration between Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam (Bullhead) and novelist-turned-screenwriter Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), takes place in the present, but its heart lies in the noirish past of both movies and literature. In that shadowy realm, tough guys are endlessly quotable, and…
Forrest Gump has turned 20 and is celebrating its birthday with a weeklong IMAX release. It’s a significant milestone for the six-time Academy Award winner. Today, 1994 is as far away from the present as the Vietnam War was from it. Forrest Gump was a fable without a moral, the…
Most of us would agree that there’s only one Al Pacino. But this year in Venice, there are actually two: Pacino appears in two films at the festival this year, David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, about a lonely Texas locksmith stuck in a romantic dream, and, playing out of competition, Barry…
Let’s face it. The fall TV season, especially for network television, has lost a lot of its luster over the last decade. With all of the other options for awesome things to watch on cable channels, Netflix, Hulu, and every other Tom, Dick, and Harry Internet site getting ready to…
Whether you’re looking to escape through some movie magic or learn something new about your favorite band or actor, there are plenty of films coming out this month that fit the bill. Cult favorite directors like David Lynch and Terry Gilliam will surely present something that will keep you guessing,…
Why did so few people see Sin City: A Dame to Kill For over the weekend? That and other topics are discussed in this week’s edition of the Voice Film Club podcast with the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek, joined as always by Amy Nicholson of the L.A…
Here’s what an R rating gets you these days: a few splattery headshots, some glimpses of cable TV-style background nudity, a couple kids and families popped by assassins, a brace of fucks, in dialogue, and one un-bracing fuck, in bed, mostly clothed. During its longueurs, this engagingly grim spy-versus-spymasters time-passer…
The gent at the Delta check-in counter back in New York sighed when he saw where I was headed. “Romantic Venezia!” he said, and the comment stopped me short, because film festivals located in the most beautiful settings in the world have a way of making you forget — almost…
Some movies seem to be put on this Earth just for actors. You look at the synopsis of a picture, and you think, “Well, it could be okay,” but then you notice who’s in it — maybe a performer you like but haven’t seen in a while, or someone you…
If older man/younger women matchups make many people uncomfortable, the older man/much younger women combo tends to make them apoplectic. It would be impossible for Nabokov to publish Lolita today, now that all of life, and all of art, must be arranged, categorized, and restricted as a way of protecting…
Since it’s the kind of slow-building movie whose very premise is something of a spoiler, a pretty delicious one, let’s get the consumer-guide jazz out of the way first. Hilary Brougher’s YA-ish horror satire/romance/whatzit Innocence, adapted from Jane Mendelsohn’s novel, boasts a wicked setup, some strong performances, several gloriously bloody…
The Identical is Elvis slash fiction that could have been written by a spinster church organist. Its premise is intriguing: What if Jesse Presley, Elvis’ twin brother who was stillborn at birth, was in fact secretly given to a traveler minister (Ray Liotta) and his infertile wife (Ashley Judd)? What…
Film buffs, clear your schedules. The 14th annual Scottsdale International Film Festival is set for Thursday, October 9, through Monday, October 13, and the festival’s organizers just announced which films will open and close the five-day film event. If you’re a fan of Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallee, William…
Seth Meyers hosted the 2014 Emmys on August 25. It was a good night for good TV — despite being an awards show on a Monday…
Photo by Phil Bray – © 2014 – LionsgateWell, who was it? Find out in this week’s pod.On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice and Amy Nicholson of L.A. Weekly sift through the smoldering pile of action movie that is the…
Every other year or so, someone comes down the indie-movie pike with an idea for an unconventional zombie movie — as opposed to the workaday ones, where the dead simply return to life and chew on limbs and stuff. Life After Beth, the debut film from writer-director Jeff Baena, strives…
Jennifer M. Kroot’s To Be Takei is an affectionate portrait of the hardest-working member of the original cast of Star Trek, George Takei. That’s pronounced tuh-KAY, not tuh-KAI, as so many have misspoken it over the years, including but not limited to William Shatner, whose strained non-relationship with Takei —…
Should grownups be spending their time reading young-adult novels, at the risk of missing the supposed riches of fiction written for actual grownups? A recent essay in Slate groused about the legions of adults who long ago graduated from the 12th grade but still devour YA fiction at the expense…
