A mousy teenager with curly hair and a face full of acne, Minnie is the farthest thing from cool " even if the actress who plays her, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, has charisma to spare. Minnie…
Research the ratings history of "Wuthering Heights" via the Motion Picture Academy, and you'll see a progression in how Emily Brontë's novel has been treated on-screen, evolving from tame…
As the "Rocky" score soars from the car stereo, Eli (Son Sukku) and Audrey (Moon Choi) are having two completely different experiences while in the same vehicle. He's elated, moving his hand…
Even the most inspirational films about growing up in the inner-city have a tendency to look down on their subjects, portraying them as characters to be rescued or redeemed. But in Walter Th…
In the documentary "Once Upon a Time in Harlem," the legendary photographer James Van Der Zee eyes the grand piano sitting in the living room of Duke Ellington's townhouse. We hear a voice n…
Texas is a big place that can feel so small sometimes. Just ask comedian Iliza Shlesinger, who clearly gets it. Born in New York, but raised in the suburbs of Dallas Fort Worth, she made her…
In Ursula Wills-Jones' 2008 short story "The Wicker Husband" (not to be confused with the "The Wicker Man"), an unpleasant fisherwoman in an unenlightened medieval town asks the local basket…
If life is a contest, the way the folks at Guinness World Records seem to treat it, how exactly does one win? Is it by amassing the most assets? The most wisdom? Some might argue that succes…
Movies are the great escape. "Optimistic endings, passionate romances," sings the incarcerated dreamer of "Kiss of the Spider Woman," who looks to old Hollywood movies as an oasis of beauty …
Ahmed (Amir El-Masry) belongs to an Egyptian family accustomed to defeat. The soccer team they root for can't win a single match, no matter how they follow their household-specific superstit…
Born on the same day in the same Beirut hospital just a minute apart, while war raged outside, the lovers in "A Sad and Beautiful World" were seemingly destined to fall for each other, and t…
After seven movies, the "Paranormal Activity" franchise doesn't frighten audiences the way it once did " that is, through the power of suggestion, using home security cameras, smartphones an…
Oz has never felt more great and powerful than it does in "Wicked: For Good." Where the first entry in director Jon M. Chu's exuberant two-parter succeeded in wowing audiences last fall, its…
In "Working Girl," an upwardly mobile Melanie Griffith embodied Tess McGill, a secretary from Staten Island with big hair and even bigger dreams. She thought her new boss (played by Sigourne…
On the chain around Hedda Gabler's neck hangs a key to her father's gun case. One needn't be a genius to deduce that the key will be used, and eventually the gun as well, in writer-director …
In the twisted children's novel "The Twits," Road Dahl describes the repulsive state of Mr. Twit's facial hair with relish, lingering on details like the "maggoty green cheese" and "slimy ta…
Given the pressures of modern existence, it's clear why an adaptation of Michael Ende's 1973 novel "Momo" would appear utterly relevant in 2025. More than ever, the hours in the day seem ins…
A vivid portrait of a legendary kabuki actor over the course of his career, "Kokuho" joins a rich tradition of films that depict the personal cost of making art. Too often, such stories pres…
With Spinal Tap, the joke never gets old, even if the hilarious-as-ever heavy metal trio is now bordering on geriatric. Well into their 70s, hall-of-fame improv talents Michael McKean and Ch…
Some things you simply can't fake. Take talent: There's no room for anything shy of genius in "The Christophers," a crackling original drama about artistic legacy in all its facets, directed…
Normal is the name of a Minnesota town where things are anything but. Just 1,890 people live in the tiny Midwestern burg, but there must be at least that many guns to go around. The guy who …
Based on the real life of Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, who takes an exec credit here, "I Swear" is a biopic about a man who came of age in 1980s Scotland at a time when Touret…
Six years ago, the inimitable Werner Herzog made "Family Romance, LLC," an odd pseudo-documentary about a Japanese service that specialized in hiring actors to play a loved one, colleague or…
The secret of "Maddie's Secret" " or maybe it's the central joke " is that the movie's creator and star, comedian John Early, takes the whole thing seriously. A uniquely tacky critique of in…
"Looking for goshawks is like looking for grace: it comes, but not often, and you don't get to say when or how," writes Helen Macdonald in "H Is for Hawk," a book I picked up by accident (al…