Honeydripper, by veteran American director John Sayles, shows just how much life music can give to a movie.. It's best to forget the story here and focus on those small moments that shine in any Sayles film.. Lemmons creates mesmerizing passages, but she can't bring this one to a fulfilling crescendo.. . It has all the reliable components of Sayles' films: a strong social conscience; well-drawn characters...
Metallica: Through the Never (2013) Watch Streaming
The film's linguistic problems might be overlooked, where it not for the complete lack of believable romance between the pouty Cruz and the frisky Cage.. The movie's craft is dead and dutiful. It's an Oscar machine.. The film's perfectly watchable, but it's never more than that.. In the real world, concerts build to a climax, then return for two or three more; on the screen, alas, "Metallica: Through...
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001) Play Streaming
We began this dismal movie season with one lethally bad World War II romance -- Pearl Harbor -- and now we're wrapping up with another howling dog, Captain Corelli's Mandolin.. A phlegmatic, middlebrow romantic drama so stodgy that even the goats look bored.. It's light on the chills and heavy on the atmospheric weirdness, and there are moments of jaw-droppingly odd behavior -- yet I found it weirdly...
The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) Play Movie
The film confirms director Audiard as a master of visual mood, in this case one of barely expressed emotional panic.. It's a tense, jumpy, sometimes amusing work that posits the inherent duality of everything. And, most definitely, the intriguing duality of people.. Bruce Beresford, the veteran director of such Oscar fare as Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy, apparently didn't know when to quit,...
The Company (2003) Download Movie
Absolutely one of the greatest, most cringe-worthy movies I've ever seen.. Altman is a master at blending ensemble casts ... but there's little he can do with these nondescript characters, who quickly blend into a faceless morass.. Lacks what could kindly be called coherence.. A buttery rich animated tale of love, jazz, showbiz, fame and politics in the late '40s and early '50s that is as catchy as...
Forty Shades of Blue (2005) Full Movie Streaming
. . The flashy adaptation of the book by aging Belgian provocateur Herman Brusselmans is as systematically offensive and boisterously vulgar as its degenerate punk protagonists. Or at least that's the aim.. A jolt of backwoods moonshine whiskey injected into the veins of the atrophied American relationship drama.. Forty Shades of Blue hits you like a shot of moonshine whiskey. Right in the gut, with...
Abandon (2002) Full Movie Streaming
Gaghan ... has thrown every suspenseful cliche in the book at this nonsensical story.. It can't make up its mind whether it's a serious drama, a swoony romance, or a psychological thriller.. It's a bad sign in a thriller when you instantly know whodunit.. The title helpfully offers the most succinct review of it you'll read anywhere.. ... expands the horizons of boredom to the point of collapse, turning...
The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll (2011) Full Movie Streaming
. An exhausted pileup of rock-movie cliches, "The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll" presents artistic self-destruction with the solemnity of a movie that has invented a spanking-new genre.. It's worth sticking with 40 Shades of Blue to catch two of the year's most richly detailed pieces of acting.. . The visual dexterity exhibited by Mr. Mortier, in his feature debut, and his cinematographer, Glynn Speeckaert,...
Grand Piano (2013) Full Movie Streaming
Funny and feisty, gritty and sometimes grim, this first feature from the photographer Elaine Constantine delivers a sweaty snapshot of a very specific time and place.. "Grand Piano" is an ambitious effort that plays dumb.. The convincing atmosphere, performances and soundtrack of vintage Yank R&B obscurities make this an enjoyable throwback to a scene whose influence if not its fame eventually...
Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2011) Download Movie
It's slight, but pleasurable fun.. It's not "On Golden Pond" by any stretch, but it is nice to have Fonda back in the fractious family way.. Certainly, there's a comedy to be made about multigenerational conflict. But "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding" never quite finds its groove.. Preposterous, but much anxious fun.. It's like "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in the Catskills.. A revealing if disappointingly...
Ex Drummer (2007) Download Full
Signaling a new low in post-modern smug superiority, Ex Drummer tries to pass off contempt as comedy and slanted lensing as creativity.. The visual dexterity exhibited by Mr. Mortier, in his feature debut, and his cinematographer, Glynn Speeckaert, may keep you watching if not necessarily involved.. A thoroughly offensive and often hilarious punk requiem about rape, murder, violence, kinky sex, drugs,...
The Caveman's Valentine (2001) Download Full
Lemmons creates mesmerizing passages, but she can't bring this one to a fulfilling crescendo.. Works as everything but a mystery, yet it is intriguing in a number of ways.. Watching the film, it's easy to imagine how a novel might make the unlikely plot machinations less ludicrous.. The plot lines that follow are so convoluted and ludicrous that one just gives up piecing it all together.. The new...
No Good Deed (2003) Full Movie Streaming
It's a diverting enough hour-and-a-half for the family audience.. If you're looking to take your children to something harmless, that doesn't embarrass anyone, this light comedy ... is your next outing.. It's just that it's so generally mediocre, bland and predictable that I found myself moaning every time I looked at my watch, which was often.. Entertains not so much because of its music or comic...