Monthly Archives: May 2021

Reviewing this Lili Taylor comedy, opening Friday, shortly.

You will recognize the stand-up faces, if not necessarily the names they go by in this late June release.

A rigid, traditional Vietnamese dad and his Polish-born daughter stumble towards a connection in “The Taste of Phở,” a slight but engaging dramedy from Poland. Long (Thang Long Do) is chef at Warsaw’s struggling, somewhat hidebound Ha Long restaurant. His … Continue reading →

What’s the old joke? “Authenticity is the hardest thing to fake?” The new “countdown to my big ‘homecoming’ concert” documentary, “The Boy from Medellin,” presents a portrait of an artist under a lot of stress. José Álvaro Osorio Balvin, aka … Continue reading →

Robert Mitchum was a high-mileage/hard-miles 57 when he took on Raymond Chandler’s iconic private eye Philip Marlowe in 1975’s “Farewell, My Lovely,” a character immortalized by Bogie in “The Big Sleep” in a story of that had been filmed twice … Continue reading →

“The Water Man” is a gorgeous looking tween fantasy/adventure in the “Bridge to Terabithia” tradition, well-cast and designed to tug at the heartstrings. But the feature directing debut of co-star David Oyelowo (“Selma”) is a Bridge to Nowhere — dramatically … Continue reading →

Imagine the nerds from “The Big Bang Theory” stumbling into the plot of “Taken,” or pretty much any Liam Neeson out-for-revenge thriller. Now imagine them Danish. That’s “Riders of Justice,” the dark, bloody, sweet and sometimes hilarious comic thriller from … Continue reading →

“Citizen Penn” is a documentary about Sean Penn‘s path from Oscar-winner, tabloid target and sometimes hectoring political activist to a humanitarian aid worker of the first order, a Hollywood star who has turned his celebrity into a magnet for drawing … Continue reading →

It’s established fact that “time travel” is the best plot to lean on if you want to make sci-fi on an indie film budget. “Cerebrum” is a twisty, confusing time bending tale of a son (Christian James) who walks into … Continue reading →

Could a Rainer Werner Fassbinder become a star filmmaker today? That’s a question that comes to mind in the scruffy, seamy but accurate portrait of him that emerges from “Enfant Terrible,” director Oscar Roehler’s film biography of the wunderkind of … Continue reading →