Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

She just turned 21. So perhaps the cruel truth can be at last be said about Dakota Fanning without fear of being called a child-abuser. Whatever “it” is, that spark that film actresses and actors have that makes them interesting … Continue reading →

There’s an extraneous word in the title of the thriller “The Girl is in Trouble.” The moment we meet the sexy, calculating Swede Signe (Alicja Bachleda), we know the girl IS trouble. But co-writer/director Julius Onah’s clever genre film never … Continue reading →

That late March animated window — spring break for elementary school kids, nothing else at the movies for them to see — opened wide for “Home,” a lesser Dreamworks offering that cleared $50 million, easily, a $54 million weekend for … Continue reading →

“Danny Collins” may be the closest Al Pacino ever gets to playing Pacino the legend on the big screen. Perma-tanned under that vast black mane and Mephistophelian goatee, blinged in the Jersey Italian style, effortlessly larger than life and bowl-you-over … Continue reading →

Good acting and sharp editing make “The Barber” a most engrossing serial killer thriller. But too much talk, mostly in a lecturing over-explained finale, almost undoes all of that. Scott Glenn has the title role, a Chicago man once a … Continue reading →

“Home” is a energetic, obvious animated comedy packed with the sort of low humor and silly laughs that drive very small children wild. It’s a lesser Dreamworks work, in other words, no more ambitious than those later “Madagascar” movies. There’s … Continue reading →

The time-honored actor/actress tradition of “if Hollywood won’t hire me, I’ll make work for myself” is the origin story of “Apartment Troubles,” a nearly laughless comedy that doesn’t do its writer/director/stars any favors. But cute character comics Jennifer Prediger (“Life … Continue reading →

Budapest, Hungary, has a serious PR problem thanks to the movie “White God.” The film, a grimly dark satire, depicts a city of serious dog haters — from ordinary apartment tenants intolerant of canines, to the homeless who steal them, … Continue reading →

In her native Denmark, director Susanne Bier makes intimate, emotional and even allegorical dramas such as “After the Wedding” and “In a Better World.” In Hollywood, she’s a little lost, shoehorned into flat melodramas such as “Things We Lost in … Continue reading →

Kevin Hart finds himself shoehorned into a Will Ferrell buddy comedy in “Get Hard,” a politically incorrect romp that only rarely romps. It’s a “Trading Places” variation, with Ferrell as James, a top dollar fund manager busted by the Feds … Continue reading →