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…
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 OK, but then you notice who’s in it — maybe a performer you like but haven’t seen in a while, or someone you…
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…
For women especially, it’s wholly out of fashion to have sympathy for middle-aged white men. In both real life and fiction, the thinking goes, they’ve reigned supreme long enough. Who cares about their anxiety over their receding hairlines, their poochy stomachs, their inability to attract young babes? That tinny plink…
What’s fascinating, new and neglected across all major video platforms. Among other things, cinema has always been a ready-made self-eulogizer — Hollywood was making two-reeler silent comedies about the craft of moviemaking before the viewing public even knew what it entailed, and documentaries about famous and forgotten threads of film…
The Wetlands film poster proudly states it’s “the most WTF, NSFW movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.” The mind jumps to curiosity or disgust almost immediately, but that’s unsurprising coming from David Wnendt’s film based on Charlotte Roche’s sexually charged novel of the same name. It’s a story about…
Miami Beach is about to get a piece of the city’s thriving indie cinema scene. The award-winning O Cinema will open a third location in North Beach this fall. The third art-house, community-focused cinema was approved unanimously this morning by the city of Miami Beach mayor and city commissioners, who…
The documentary Advanced Style isn’t at all subtle about its premise from the very moment it begins, but that’s not a bad thing. Ari Seth Cohen, the man behind the blog that presents the world with stylish and creative older folks, introduces himself to people on the streets and compliments…
The Wetlands film poster proudly states it’s “the most WTF, NSFW movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.” The mind jumps to curiosity or disgust almost immediately, but that’s unsurprising coming from David Wnendt’s film based on Charlotte Roche’s sexually charged novel of the same name. It’s a story about…
Every year, it’s like a movie-making tradition to release a slew of horrors and thrillers right around the fall season — particularly the month of October. So why would this year be any different? Hollywood has been stepping up its game when it comes to the quality of films in…
Friday was my last day in Venice, which always makes me blue. Thursday morning, on the way to my final screening, a tourist with an Eastern European accent I couldn’t quite identify stopped me a block or so from the sad and shuttered Hotel des Bains and asked me if…
Yesterday, we highlighted nine comedies, musicals, and animated movies to keep in your rear view as we plunge into the best time of the year for movies. Now it’s time to shed light on dramas — you do want some drama, yes, yes, yes, yes drama. We’ve narrowed it down…
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…
Concert films come and go all the time, with most of them not leaving much of an impression on the world after they premiere. But some of them do last, and those are the ones that offer engaging and often different experiences to the norm. Some even transcend the limitations…
The fall movie season is not just for would-be Oscar contenders to come out punching left and right. There always has to be room for laughter and feel food musicals that make you want to sing along. And those animated creatures that give you the warm-and-fuzzies. After you’re done catching…
You could be forgiven, after watching the opening minutes of Ira Sachs’ fine-grained and flinty Love Is Strange, for thinking it’ll be a movie about Gay Marriage, with all the import those initial caps imply. We see two older men, clearly a couple, roll out of bed in what is…
If older man/younger woman matchups make many people uncomfortable, the older man/much younger woman 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…
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 traveling minister (Ray Liotta) and his infertile wife (Ashley Judd)? What happens next…
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…
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…
John Wojtowicz may be the perfect embodiment of Maslow’s ideal of self-actualization. The inspiration for Al Pacino’s character in Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon and now the subject of Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s fascinating documentary The Dog, Wojtowicz was many things: soldier, bank robber, libertine, and both “Goldwater Republican”…
To live in Miami is to be immersed in Cuban culture, but how many of us really know the tale of our neighbors, our ancestors, and ourselves? José Enrique Pardo had enough of romantic Hollywood depictions and took matters into his own hands. With only two short films under his…
