The best way to describe actor Robert Carlyle’s directorial debut is a black comedy or, more to the point, a bleak comedy. Emma Thompson costars as an epically self-centered harridan: loud, vulgar, frequently drunk, and with a complete lack of social inhibition.
Hail, Caesar! is a big, luscious, gorgeous ode to the Golden Age of Hollywood—a certain kind of Hollywood, at any rate. It’s a work that is great and minor at the same time. It has a passable central plot while everything else around it, all of the moving parts, is wonderful and hysterically funny and often […]
Before I settled down in my seat to watch the new horror/comedy Nina Forever, my friend and I were discussing a particular film that I liked and he didn’t. He did admire its audacity, though. He said it was a film you had to go “all in for.” Fortuitously, Nina Forever is an absolutely “all […]
The opening credits spell it out: 800,000 sheep among 320,000 Icelanders. Living in the remote northern part of the country, two brothers, bachelor sheep farmers past middle age, live alone on side by side farms. Their family has lived in the region for generations, raising prized thoroughbred stock. Both brothers have an attentive, paternal relationship with their herds—their constant companions—yet the men haven’t said a word to each other […]
Rock the Kasbah is an intermittently funny, frequently tedious slog burdened with a mediocre script that leaves some heavy lifting to a stellar cast and a first-rate director. Without Barry Levinson at the helm and Bill Murray at its center, it would have collapsed due to its lazy, haphazard plotting and annoying “this is my […]
Written and Directed by Pat Mills Produced by Mike MacMillan and Alyson Richards Released by Strand Releasing Canada. 80 min. Not rated With Pat Mills, Zahra Bentham, Tracey Hoyt, Kevin Hanchard, Alex Ozerov, and Eleanor Zichy Guidance, a new comedy about a depressed ex-child actor posing as a high school guidance counselor, is the directorial […]
Directed by Noah Baumbach Produced by Baumbach, Scott Rudin, Lila Yacoub, Rodrigo Teixeira, and Gerwig; Written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Released by Fox Searchlight Pictures USA. 84 min. Rated R With Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Heather Lind, Michael Chernus, Cindy Cheung, Kathryn Erbe, and Dean Wareham Viewers who loved […]
Directed by Brent Hodge and Derik Murray Produced by Derik Murray Written by Steve Burgess Released by Virgil Films USA. 95 min. Not rated With Lorne Michaels, Bob Odenkirk, David Spade, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Christina Applegate, Dan Aykroyd, Tom Arnold, Bo Derek, Brian Stack, Bob Saget, and Jay Mohr Chris Farley was a bright […]
Directed by Judd Apatow Produced by Apatow and Barry Mendel Written by Amy Schumer Released by Universal Pictures USA. 123 min. Rated R With Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, John Cena, Vanessa Bayer, Mike Birbiglia, Dave Attell, Tilda Swinton and LeBron James Mwah mwah Amy Schumer. Bring this woman a cocktail! You’re […]