The actress Lake Bell’s feature-film writing/directing debut IN A WORLD… has a fresh slant on showbiz comedy, and it’s both consistently likable and sometimes very funny. It’s also sloppy, overbroad, predictable and so technically flat that it hurts the eyes to watch–but that’s what first films are for. The general idea of In A World…, in which various […]
BEAUTIFUL BOY (Amazon/October 12): A true-life story of drug addiction told with sincerity and superb acting, but which can’t shake the feel of generic problem drama. Felix Van Groeningen’s film (co-written with Luke Davies) is based on parallel memoirs by recovering addict Nic Sheff (played most of the time by It Boy Timothee Chalomet) […]
> For anyone attending the Toronto International Film Festival that begins in just over 2 weeks, today was a crucial day: the release of the Festival schedule. (TIFF also announced some not-shabby final additions to its roster of titles, including Gus Van Sant’s Restless and Jonathan Demme’s third and latest Neil Young documentary.) Now […]
The writer-director Mike Cahill has staked out a unique piece of narrative territory for himself. In both Another Earth and his new I ORIGINS, which debuted at Sundance last week (and won the festival prize for best science-based work), he explores the point where factual science meets not just science fiction, but something more metaphysical, an area […]
HIT MAN (no distrib): A clever, funny, sexy entertainment from Richard Linklater and emerging star Glen Powell, who co-wrote the script with the director (both also produced), inspired by an already-wild true story. Powell plays Gary Johnson, a philosophy teacher moonlighting as a consultant for a local Texas police department. He’s supposed to be […]
It’s not really a surprise to see Alfonso Cuaron join James Cameron, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott in that small group of film artists who have made 3D part of the essential toolbox of their imagery (no, Baz Luhrmann and Guillermo del Toro don’t make the list, although Michael Bay might). Cuaron is a […]
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (IFC): no release date scheduled – Watch It At Home Olivier Assayas is a dazzlingly ambitious filmmaker, determined to do something totally different with each project he undertakes. The results range from the spectacular (Carlos) to the tone-deaf (Demonlover), with his new CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA, which premiered at Cannes […]
THE GOOD NURSE (Netflix – Oct. 26): An unusually serious thriller about a serial killer. Tobias Lindholm’s film, from a script by Krysty Wilson-Cairns (who wrote 1917 and Last Night In Soho) and based on a book by Charles Graeber that recounted a true story, has a deliberately ambiguous title. It seems at first […]