I’m Not There screenwriter Oren Moverman makes his directorial debut with The Messenger, a moving and nuanced drama about the home-front readjustment period for decorated Iraq War hero Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) who, after surviving a roadside blast, has been reassigned as a casualty notification officer. He is partnered with…
After undervalued supporting turns in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, North Country, and Gone Baby Gone, dainty girl-next-door type Michelle Monaghan finally and deservedly snags a star vehicle in the film Trucker to show off her chops. Against the roadside Americana of writer-director James Mottern’s well-shot desert drama, Monaghan flips the…
The vampire trend continues, but the only authentic bloodsuckers in Cirque du Freak are its producers and studio execs. Drawn from the young-adult books by U.K. author Darren Shan, Cirque du Freak has F/X creatures, teen angst and romance, mysterious backstories, and a brewing war between beasties. On paper, it’s…
Chuck Close calls them the mascots of the art world. Christo and Jeanne-Claude once offered them a drawing in exchange for taking care of their cat, Gladys, for a summer. The passion for minimalist and conceptual art that aging Manhattan collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel have shared for nearly a…
There’s no kind of wonderful in Mary Stuart Masterson’s directorial debut, The Cake Eaters. Yet however slight her ensemble drama — about two distressed families in the Rockwellian framings of time-forgotten rural America — it’s at least convincing in its genuine sweetness. When wandering musician Guy Kimbrough (screenwriter Jayce Bartok)…
Bart Got a Room South Florida native Brian Hecker’s uncomfortably strained directorial debut — a semi-autobiographical comedy about a high school senior who can’t find a prom date — foolishly believes that Windsor fonts, swing-era songs, and Jews are enough to invoke Woody Allen’s wit. It’s a quirky indie, you…
