It’s quite disconcerting when people in the theater laugh at something they’re supposed to laugh at — even if it isn’t funny. That’s the way I felt during the entire two-hour running time of Garry Marshall’s New Year’s Eve, his “superior” sequel to 2010’s Valentine’s Day (though that isn’t saying very much). I don’t know,…
Nothing — and I mean nothing — can prepare you for children. So the advice you may receive from the five couples looking to conceive or adopt in Lionsgate’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting (or the best-selling books it is based off of) ain’t gonna help you one bit. What you will probably get,…
Loosely based on director Mike Mills’ own experience as the son of a gay father who came out in his seventies, Beginners is the story of sexual and emotional repression, thwarted relationships, and fresh starts. Hal (Christopher Plummer), at age 75, tells his 38-year-old son Oliver (Ewan McGregor), that he is gay and has been…
I never thought the life of a pickpocket was particularly endearing but after seeing the trailer for IFC Films’ Loosies, I’m not so sure. Master thief Bobby seems to be cruising along easy street — fine dining, buying to his hearts content and bedding pretty girls — that is until he finds out a one-night…
It’s a curious situation when so many people get a kick at the same cinematic can and none of them can get it right. Is the material to blame? The filmmakers? The whole bloody idea? Let’s call it a three-way tie. Following in the footsteps of occasionally decent (but you wouldn’t know it from this…
No theme in drama touches the heart more than the separation of lovers. In classic dramas from Romeo and Juliet to Wuthering Heights, we empathize with the feelings of sadness and loss that estrangement brings and can relate them to our own experience. Some stories of separation, however, lack deeply-drawn characters and do not have…
Um . . . hmm . . . wow. I’m stupefied at what a colossal mess The Three Musketeers has been made into. Three of the more prominent heroes in history have been watered down to pathetic caricatures and, in their own movie, given a back seat to a nausea inducing 3D experience and to…
