Rex Reed
Mother and Child is a potent, poignant and beautifully calibrated film about the always timely issue of adoption and its effect on three strangers in Los Angeles, whose lives connect in haunting and unpredictable ways. The adoption theme would seem like no big deal if the three women were happy and securely established in their homes and careers. But all three are tortured victims of frustration, their lives spun out with rising and falling... MORE >
Michael Caine is such a consummate actor that it’s a major cause of concern to see him in Harry Brown, another hateful vigilante flick the wags in England have already labeled Dirty Harry Brown for reasons that are immediately... MORE >
The Good Heart is a bizarre, idiosyncratic co-production from Denmark, Germany, France and Iceland, with all the torpor such a combination suggests. The great character actor Brian Cox plays Jacques, a cranky, mean-spirited New York bartender with a mouth as foul as week-old garbage. Alcohol and chain-smoking have wreaked havoc on his health, but in the hospital, after his fifth coronary, he finds himself reluctantly sharing a room with a surly kid named Lucas... MORE >
Nicole Holofcener has carved a modest success out of film festival fare like Lovely and Amazing, but her talent for sketchy, short-story formats about a multitude of stressed-out women that appeal largely to female audiences is not matched by much commercial box office glory. Her latest is the slow-simmering Please Give, a muted Manhattan melody in a minor key about women plagued with self-doubt; it seems destined for the doldrums.... MORE >
Boogie Woogie was adapted by Danny Moynihan from his novel about the pretentious New York art scene, and the story has been moved to London for reasons nobody can fathom. The result is not a scalding satire but a tepid spoof that only occasionally evokes a reluctant smile. Freshman director Duncan Ward has worked in the London art world and is married to powerful British curator Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst.... MORE >
The trash explosion’s fuse was lit early this year. Why wait for the dog days of summer when you can get The Losers now? Staying awake during this ordeal of incompetent, incomprehensible stupidity is not difficult. It’s so noisy that you can hear it in the next town. Staying interested is something else... MORE >
What is happening to Jeff Daniels? Not since Jeff Bridges has a good actor appeared in so many movies in a row—all of them lousy. (By my count, nearly 30 in the past 10 years!) Of course, things can change. Look at what happened to the other Jeff. But it’s too early to yell “Excelsior!” First, we have an excruciating bore called Paper Man to get... MORE >
It’s rare to see a film directed by a woman who knows more about men than they themselves do. With Handsome Harry, the widely respected independent filmmaker Bette Gordon has hit a bull’s eye. The title role, played with creative sensitivity by the underrated Jamey Sheridan, is a lonely, isolated Chicago electrician—divorced, alienated from his only son and no longer sexually active—whose empty life is only occasionally brightened when he sings with a vocal... MORE >
The red carpet of greed, materialism and self-promotion has never been tread with so much fiber-punishing wear and tear as by the camera-ready Jones family, in a fresh, scintillating and downright terrific new movie called—what else?—The Joneses.... MORE >
The City of Your Final Destination is the first film esteemed director James Ivory has made since the death of producer Ismail Merchant, his business partner through 49 years of distinguished Merchant Ivory films. With only one-half of Merchant Ivory in operation, can a reputation for literate, civilized and polished motion pictures several cuts above the junk that passes for filmmaking today continue in a market dominated by trash? The answer is a resounding... MORE >
After.Life, with a pretentious point between the two words in the title for no explainable reason, is a horror film with a macabre style but few of the creepy chills of cheaper, cliché-riddled thrillers that are a dime a dozen these days. That is not a recommendation, just a mild salutation to writer-director Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo. In her feature film debut, she proves she knows her way around a morgue, but her future seems dubious.... MORE >
Film noir from Australia usually has a sinister, quietly controlled edge, and The Square is no exception. It’s a rough ride by the Edgerton brothers, two popular stuntmen, actors and music video directors with a hearty following Down Under who have finally ventured into feature filmmaking, with this complex study of a heist gone terribly awry. Nash Edgerton is the director, and the script is by Joel Edgerton, who also co-produced the film and... MORE >
Benjamin Bratt has come a long way since Law and Order. Graduating from stupid gossip column fodder as one of Julia Roberts’ many boyfriends to distinguished roles in Piñero and Traffic, he has carved a distinguished career as an actor of integrity and vision. But none of his achievements have been more honest, passionate or remarkable than his first starring role for the new production company he has formed with his brother Peter, a... MORE >
Leslie Uggams has been around, but at 67 the mileage doesn’t show. At the Carlyle, where she is tearing up the upholstery through April 17 in a new show called Uptown Downtown, she proves that if you take care of yourself, don’t smoke or sip even one drop of chardonnay, eat right, vocalize daily and do all the things the health gurus and fitness Nazis tell you to do that take all the fun... MORE >
DON MCKAYRUNNING TIME 87 minutes WRITTEN AND directed by Jake GoldbergerSTARRING Thomas Haden Church, Elizabeth Shue, Melissa Leo, James Rebhorn One eyeball out of... MORE >
