Good or bad, Cameron Crowe movies build to improbable declarations of sincerity, to the great acts or speeches a man must loose from himself into a world too cynical to value them. His heroes always must filibuster regular life with their decency. Superficially, these acts and speeches are performed in…
The San Andreas fault stretches 810 miles up the Pacific coast, roughly the length of a dozen Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsons lying end to end. When it rumbles, we’ll need all 12 of him to spring into action — although, as Brad Peyton’s San Andreas warns, that still won’t be…
Always an eagle-eyed portraitist of contemporary Italy and its socioeconomic peccadilloes, Gianni Amelio hasn’t had a film released here in over fifteen years, and this strange, gentle, whimsically formulated concoction may give us a clue as to why. Ostensibly a kind of Candide-like tragicomedy, the movie’s as difficult to figure…
As a middle-aged woman, I rarely have a conversation with other middle-aged women in which the subject of movies “for us” fails to come up. As a critic, I don’t really think of movies in terms of which ones are “for” me and which are not, but I know what…
Poltergeist 2015 is to Poltergeist ’82 what today’s shipped-frozen-to-the-store Pizza Hut dough is to the kneaded-on-site pies the chain’s stoned cooks tossed in the Reagan era. It’s the same kind of thing, with the same shape and some shared ingredients, but the texture’s gone limp, and there’s no sense of…
During “Compliments,” a first-season sketch on Inside Amy Schumer, a group of female friends respond to every bit of praise with a verbal self-maiming: “I tried to look like Kate Hudson but ended up looking like a golden retriever’s dingleberry,” says one. Sighs another, “Of course I see everyone when…
The final episode of Mad Men was upbeat — if you enjoy the death of the counter-culture. On this special episode of the Voice Film Club podcast, Village Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl and editorial fellow Lara Zarum, along with the Voice’s TV critic Inkoo Kang, discuss the final episode…
Fictional movies that tackle topical subjects often have about them the fusty air of a civics lesson, as if we’re supposed to watch while pretending we’re not being led down the path of righteousness. But writer-director Andrew Niccol’s Good Kill is something else; it’s immediate and vital, and it doesn’t…
In a junk-food summer, Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland is a defiant carrot stick, a blockbuster adventure flick where the message is “Think smart.” It’s a deliberate phooey to the kiddie carnage of movies like Transformers and The Avengers, which frighten children about the apocalypse before they can even spell the word…
In the decadent 21st Century, the summer movie season now sprawls from March through December. (Star Wars: Episode VII is due to awaken the Force December 18; every prior Star Wars picture has come out Memorial Day weekend.) But I’ll stick to tradition and call Memorial Day the start of…
Some people complain about sequels to beloved movies, while others welcome the possibility that a part deux might be even better than the first. Sometimes that happens: While The Godfather is great, The Godfather: Part II expands on its dramatic intensity without repeating any of the same tricks, and The…
This doesn’t feel like a film that exists. How is George Miller’s bonkers, exhausting, no-future smash-’em-up Mad Max: Fury Road not one of those almost-was boondoggles mourned and dreamed of by fans, a revered director’s impossible vision that, thanks to the unstout hearts of studio bean counters, never actually vaulted…
Blues legend Bessie Smith was arguably America’s most powerful black woman during her heyday in the Twenties and Thirties. Her reign wasn’t just based on being the highest-paid African-American entertainer of her generation, but, according to the new HBO movie Bessie, on the freedoms she allowed herself after breaking with…
CANNES, France — “Je m’appelle Max.” Now that’s an opening line, so much better in French, and it’s just one reason I’m glad I waited to see Mad Max: Fury Road here in Cannes on the morning of the festival’s second day, Thursday, rather than at home in the States…
One of the most inspired ideas in late-middle Woody Allen pictures comes in Deconstructing Harry, a movie about how Allen loves Bergman, hates Philip Roth, and isn’t quite clear on what “deconstruction” means. Allen stages passages from fiction written by the protagonist, a novelist named Harry; one features Robin Williams…
“I’m over people who think they’re funnier than the movie,” says LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson, in the wake of her recent piece, “Stop Laughing At Old Movies, You $@%&ing Hipsters.” Joining her — *in the same room, for the first time ever on the podcast* — as usual…
S ofía Vergara is built like an amphora, a living testament to the form ceramicists throughout the centuries have adored. In the fleet and gloriously ridiculous comedy Hot Pursuit, Vergara plays Daniella Riva, a mobster’s wife who needs to be escorted from San Antonio to Dallas, where she’ll testify against…
One of Kristen Wiig’s finest moments as a movie star is a throwaway bit of shamed, silent, morning-after comedy: Her Bridesmaids character is skulking out of the home of a cad played by Jon Hamm. She’s playing it cool, swallowing the humiliation of her bad choices, trying to show him…
Iris Apfel isn’t exactly a household name, unless we’re talking about very stylish households. From 1950 to 1992, Apfel ran Old World Weavers, the business she cofounded with her husband, Carl, which faithfully re-created antique textiles for use in home decorating. From grand Park Avenue drapes to demure White House…
Diane Keaton thinks her new film is delightfully ironic. Richard Loncraine’s 5 Flights Up is the latest in that burgeoning genre, Retiree Real Estate Romantic Comedy, where cool, gray-haired New Yorkers realize they can barely afford to live in the city where they fell in love. Keaton plays a teacher…
Avengers: Age of Ultron director and screenwriter Joss Whedon wants to give us everything in his movie, and that he fits it all in is its own kind of feat, writes LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson in her review of the film, which opens May 1. Joining her on…
Depending upon whom you talk to, we live in an era of conformity or one of anything-goes individuality; in a golden age of television or the brightest of movie galaxies. But just about everyone will agree that we’re ruled by screens of all sizes, which means it’s harder than ever…
