Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

“Mr. Kaplan”, Uruguay’s contender for the best foreign language film Oscar, is about an elderly Jew who ponders whether he “inspired” anyone, if he’s “accomplished anything memorable.” Jacob Kaplan (Héctor Noguera) decides the answer is “no,” and results to do … Continue reading →

A film crew hoping to shoot a killer pilot for a TV series on “Cannibals of the 20th Century” — no doubt Discovery is interested — heads into rural Ukraine to document a mass murderer and cannibal who survived Stalin’s … Continue reading →

A decade in the making, “The Wrecking Crew” took almost as long to make it to theaters. But Danny Tedesco’s “unknown musicians who cranked out the hits” doc, which predated and inspired the Oscar winning “Twenty Feet from Stardom,” finally … Continue reading →

It says volumes about the state of Katherine Heigl’s on-and-off screen persona that casting her as a shrieking, shrewish control freak with murderous tendencies seems a bit on-the-nose. The dark comedy “Home Sweet Hell” is about the marriage from Hell … Continue reading →

“Champs” is a quotably slick documentary about the social, psychological and economic underpinnings of boxing, a clear-eyed look at the deadly and dirty sport often rhapsodized as “The Sweet Science.” There’s nobility in the boxers this is built around — … Continue reading →

“Unfinished Business” will pull in about $5 million over this weak March weekend for movies. That’s pretty bad for a mainstream R-rated comedy, and signals the end of Vince Vaughn’s comic leading man days. He needs a Kevin James to … Continue reading →

With “Like Sunday, Like Rain,” sturdy character actor Frank Whaley (“Pulp Fiction,” TV’s “Ray Donovan”) steps behind the camera to present an elegiac, sweet romance between a boy and his nanny. No, not THAT kind of romance. This is a … Continue reading →

Take away an early barrage of fawning, Guiness and G & T enfeebled Brit critics, and Neil Blomkamp’s insipid “Chappie” would have experienced the consensus slaughter it so richly deserved. I loved “District 9,” and was enthusiastic about “Elysium” in … Continue reading →

The clash of cultures has been rubbed off the marigolds in “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” Most of the characters are back — those who didn’t die off — in this sequel comedy about British retirees lured to India … Continue reading →

Spoiler alert . There’s no magic moment of hope at the end of “Merchants of Doubt.” This documentary, the first to zero in on how and why the global climate change discussion became political and how that led to government … Continue reading →