Keira Knightley and filmmaker Joe Wright ("Atonement") team up again to cover a celebrated work of European literature, this time focusing on forbidden love among the Russian aristocracy described by Tolstoy. The latter has directed a gorgeous-looking, if overindulgent, film, although nary a soul is to be found in it. Knightley, as the title character, wallows in her loveless marriage to politician Alexei Karenin (Jude Law). She falls in love
You know those shipwreck movies where the castaways end up on some island and they have to start from scratch finding food, shelter, and, let's say in the case of “Lord of the Flies,” figure out how to govern themselves? Well, “Life of Pi” makes those movies look like a vacation in Bora Bora. Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s best selling novel (M. Knight Shyamalan was, at one point, attached to write and direct the project) is one of the
There was some hope for “Breaking Dawn Part 2." The end of Part 1 had Bella (Kristen Stewart) getting pregnant with what might be a demon offspring while becoming something of a demon herself when Edward (Robert Pattinson) turns her into a vamp. I expected Stephanie Meyers's so far-overblown book series to finally find some urgency but this may be the worse one yet, because we now know that it was all leading to bupkis, estab-
Why couldn't "The Sessions" stay on the course it sets out on? John Hawkes gives a star-making performance as real-life writer Mark O'Brien, a man who contracted polio as a child and has been held immobile by weak muscles and an inability to breathe for too long without help from an iron lung. William H. Macy does terrific work as a priest who Mark confides in about his sexual awakening. This happens to coincide with
Le fils de l'autre (original title)--Imagine a freak accident being enough to bring Israelis and Palestinians together and you’ll have the gist of what French filmmaker Lorraine Levy is going for here with “The Other Son.” It’s an intriguing concept about two eighteen year-olds, an Israeli named Joseph (Jules Sitruk) and a Palestinian named Yacine (Mehdi Dehbi), born during the Gulf War and mistakenly given to wrong families following the
That name. The musical score playing over the line of a gun sight. That Aston Martin. That dry martini. Few things in Hollywood stay fresh for this long, but Ian Fleming’s "James Bond" franchise just keeps reinvigorating itself. Its best move, recently, was the recruitment of Daniel Craig--one of the most impressive Bonds ever, no doubt. We first see him involved in an improbable action sequence in Istanbul as he chases
In "Flight," for which he collaborates with director Robert Zemeckis for the first time, Denzel Washington combines the skills of a pilot-ninja with the substance abuse problems of a Lindsay Lohan. Clearly the director and the actor working together make for great chemistry thanks to their respective skill sets) and yet, “Flight” leaves you wishing for more. Washington's Captain Whip Whitaker is no stranger to boozing and snorting cocaine
Anyone who’s ever read James Patterson’s "Alex Cross" novels knows that the Psychologist/Detective is far from the AARP card-carrying veteran made famous by Morgan Freeman. He’s actually a single father living with two kids (with a third on the way, plus a possible promotion to the FBI) and his grandma, Nana Mama. So “Alex Cross” is a reboot of sorts, one with the wild card of having Tyler “Madea” Perry
Nicole Kidman pees on Zac Efron to subdue a jellyfish sting in “The Paperboy” and you wish she would do the same thing to subdue perverted, sensationalistic writer-director Lee Daniels (“Precious”). What a load of pointless drivel this all turns out to be. Efron stars as Jack, a college dropout living in the backwater Florida town of Moat County in 1969, who spends much of his lazy life either masturbating or swimming. When his brother