In two minutes, the Beatles captured the empty life of sad singleton Eleanor Rigby. Director Ned Benson is devoting three films to her namesake — a New York divorcée (Jessica Chastain) — and this first entry, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, barely explains her at all. Wan and adrift,…
Martin Amis once wrote that the literary critic must “proceed by quotation” — that the quotation, however vigorously embellished, remains the book reviewer’s “only hard evidence” in the case for or against a work. Film criticism is denied even this meager luxury. For the writer, film’s nonverbal qualities are always…
Kevin Smith is a bright guy who over the years has become a little too taken with his own persona, his own jokes, his own cult following — it’s the filmmaker’s equivalent of getting high on your own supply. No matter how awkwardly pontifical or ill-shapen his movies have gotten…
It’s the kind of forward-thinking experience David Bowie himself might have predicted. Just for one day, in theaters across the country, a movie about a museum exhibition (featuring the rocker’s groundbreaking albums, outlandish costumes, and clips from his artistic videos) will briefly tantalize the world — and be gone. Screening…
There’s no sense denying it: The 1980s was the heyday for horror movies — the decade even had its very own scream queen (Jamie Lee Curtis, for you ’90s babies). Present day thrillers are arguably lagging behind; that is, unless someone brilliantly concocts a film that fits right in with…
#72929692 / gettyimages.com On September 16, 1984, two dreamy gelled-up cops came to our rescue. Detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, members of Metro-Dade Police vice squad, vowed to rid Miami of its criminal ills, taking on pimps, cokeheads, and mob bosses with bad ass moves and bad pastel suits…
First comes love and then comes marriage? Not necessarily. And especially not when there are reality TV cameras. We have been on this wild ride since we were first taken to Temptation Island, then the endless vicious cycle of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Now we at are the point…
Filmmaker John Landis who worked with David Bowie on Into the Night, in the mid ’80s, once recounted seeing the so-called “Chameleon of Rock ‘n’ Roll” turn his persona on and off in the streets of New York. Bowie and the director were having a stroll, and Landis, who recalled…
Getting naked for money is coming to a silver screen near you. Stripper Wars is a new Miami film that explores the world of poledancing at one of the world’s premier gentlemen’s clubs. Directed by Giancarlo Loffredo, the short flick calls itself “the first art movie ever shot at King…
Darkness. Vision is consumed by darkness and the sound of knobs turning and metal clashing. Light flickers in, and things start to come into perspective. It’s a lift; something is being carried up — but to where? The screeching of a pulley is joined by the panting of a young…
The sex scene almost makes it worth sitting through Atlas Shrugged III, the last and least of the cheapjack adaptations of Ayn Rand’s brick-thick celebration of taking your ball and going home. About an hour in, after she’s toured and left the hidden Colorado enclave of the captains of industry…
Married Women Over 30, here’s a pitch for a movie: My Dinner With Idris. You never thought it would happen to you, but one rainy night when your handsome and successful but distracted husband who doesn’t appreciate you is out of town, Idris Elba (The Wire, Mandela: Long Walk to…
Back for a second year at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, the Miami Fashion Film Festival (MIAFFF) is killing it on the big screen, delivering the kind of inventive styles that one would expect from the people who live here. Instead of just feature-length works, like the documentary Advanced Style which…
This summer, a prankster stole Kevin Smith’s Twitter account and tweeted, “Before this comes out I want to state that I am a gay proud man.” Ninety minutes later, Smith responded: “Not me. Been hacked. Proud to be bi-curious, not brave enough to commit.” But the internet already knew that…
Even the most inspiration-averse will have eyes as moist as blowholes by the end credits of Dolphin Tale 2, a good-hearted kids’ drama whose earnestness and surprising moral complexity put other sunny-weepy sea-mammal flicks to shame. After the story wraps up, the filmmakers work a trick that’s become common in…
The Drop, the richly textured, beautifully acted film collaboration between Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam (Bullhead) and novelist-turned-screenwriter Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), takes place in the present, but its heart lies in the noirish past of both movies and literature. In that shadowy realm, tough guys are endlessly quotable, and…
Some movies seem to be put on this Earth just for actors. You look at the synopsis of a picture, and you think, Well, it could be OK, but then you notice who’s in it — maybe a performer you like but haven’t seen in a while, or someone you…
Since it’s the kind of slow-building movie whose very premise is something of a spoiler, a pretty delicious one, let’s get the consumer-guide jazz out of the way first. Hilary Brougher’s YA-ish horror satire/romance/whatzit Innocence, adapted from Jane Mendelsohn’s novel, boasts a wicked setup, some strong performances, several gloriously bloody…
For women especially, it’s wholly out of fashion to have sympathy for middle-aged white men. In both real life and fiction, the thinking goes, they’ve reigned supreme long enough. Who cares about their anxiety over their receding hairlines, their poochy stomachs, their inability to attract young babes? That tinny plink…
What’s fascinating, new and neglected across all major video platforms. Among other things, cinema has always been a ready-made self-eulogizer — Hollywood was making two-reeler silent comedies about the craft of moviemaking before the viewing public even knew what it entailed, and documentaries about famous and forgotten threads of film…
The Wetlands film poster proudly states it’s “the most WTF, NSFW movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.” The mind jumps to curiosity or disgust almost immediately, but that’s unsurprising coming from David Wnendt’s film based on Charlotte Roche’s sexually charged novel of the same name. It’s a story about…
Miami Beach is about to get a piece of the city’s thriving indie cinema scene. The award-winning O Cinema will open a third location in North Beach this fall. The third art-house, community-focused cinema was approved unanimously this morning by the city of Miami Beach mayor and city commissioners, who…
