It’s a family affair when widowed, repressed Lilia (Hiyam Abbas) and her spunky daughter Salma (Hend El Fahem) just can’t get enough of a suave drummer, Chokri (Maher Kamoun). This bold and lyrical first feature from Raja Amari expands the pat notion that middle-aged women just wanna have fun into…

Honestly, I’ve never been much into schmaltzy movies about the old neighborhood. The whole scene seems pretty hellish; all that cutesy talk about this good old street or that once-hoppin’ nightclub. Therefore, when it’s announced there’s a movie called Welcome to Collinwood about a bunch of Hollywood actors playing shticky…

Much like a psychic, a cinema critic must look through a movie and see the other side. In the case of the new thriller The Ring–a remake of the 1998 Japanese hit, Ringu–the formative forces swim into focus without effort. There’s a Dreamworks boardroom, some executives exclaiming that Shrek can’t…

Death is too often taken literally, and this unfortunate perspective is sustained by much cinema, despite the medium’s dubious kiss of immortality. There’s easy drama in tragedy and grisly ends, but not commonly do moviemakers successfully deliver symbolic death, the subtly grim yet vital bridge between lively verses. Happily, director…

The not-so-great American pastime of serial killing has splattered pop culture in recent years, but from the biopics of America’s Most Unwanted to the nervy theatricality of Anthony Perkins, Kevin Spacey or even David Byrne (whose Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer” says it all), only one legend stands definitive, that…

Muccino (But Forever in My Mind) pays his respects to Fellini (Juliet of the Spirits on television) and Tarantino (a Reservoir Dogs poster), then straddles with aplomb the intergenerational niche he’s carved between. It’s a mostly engaging approach, as confused Gen-Xer Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) struggles with his feelings for his…

Although his name sounds like an inventory notebook for candy bars, Heath Ledger is presently overcoming this confusion–as well as the plight of the pretty boy–to become one of contemporary cinema’s more vital actors. In The Four Feathers–as in The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale and Monster’s Ball–Ledger once again plays…

There’s no denying that U2 is awesome, nor that Phil Joanou is a snappy director, but the charming awkwardness of Sam Jones’ 16mm black-and-white rockumentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart makes one wanna murmur, “Rattle on? Humbug!” at the Irish Grammy-grabbers’ old-school cinematic self-celebration. As we turn our…

While it’s no longer the revolutionary tranifesto it may have been, D.A. Pennebaker’s 1973 concert film (first released in 1983) captures David Bowie’s meticulous identity quest with all the frenetic energy (read: slop) of a wildlife documentary on drugs. What this means for you, viewer and/or fan, is that the…

After several years of taking the baddie roles Dennis Hopper was passing on, not to mention the occasional bizarro gamble (say, as Mr. Roarke in the short-lived Fantasy Island revival), Malcolm McDowell returns to prime form in Gangster No. 1. At long last, this spry and mean little film gives…

Sometimes when a director shoots at a barn, the satisfaction comes in simply watching him hit it dead center. So it is with The Good Girl, wherein Miguel Arteta (Star Maps) targets Middle American ennui with wit, compassion and no shortage of ornery malaise. Like Arteta’s second feature, Chuck &…

Not much has changed in the 11 years since Mike Myers used the first Wayne’s World movies as a personal launchpad, only tipping his James Bond-spoofing Austin Powers hand when he was strong enough at the box office to reap the rewards of his licensed characters. Now those spy-movie send-ups–the…

Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking. In many ways it’s just another cramped, dank submarine movie–bells, whistles, leaks, danger-danger!–but well-established…

On the first day (of opening weekend), the lord said, “Let there be, like, this year’s Evolution or sumpin’, only with more hope for significant box-office returns,” and there is, and it is called Eight Legged Freaks, and it is good. The silly title needs a hyphen in the compound…

For centuries, Western philosophies have interpreted the dragon as a symbol of explosive violence, and, frankly, that’s rather one-sided. By (Saint) George, there has existed a notion that the basilisk is always bad, born to be slain. However, there’s a wide spectrum between Sirrush and Smaug, representing everything from our…

If there’s any truth to reincarnation, the spirit of Napoleon may walk among us today. It’s not unreasonable to conjecture that he has taken up residence in Bill Gates or Joel Silver, but–perhaps more likely–the little conqueror with the big hat has fragmented and landed in the bodies of countless…

In her recent book, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, journalist Rachel Simmons hits a very topical nail squarely on its very sore head. Coining the term “relational aggression,” she employs several case studies to buttress the obvious but significant theory that modern girls are extremely…

Naked emotion is a tricky thing to sell, especially in semiautobiographical films about confused mama’s boys gradually learning that life exists beyond the control of their lens. The latter two of this cut’s three hours richly expand upon the romantic longing (for Agnese Nano young, Brigitte Fossey older) and deliver…

There are a few dubious claims affecting the popular perception of the life and death of Napoleon Bonaparte. Despite the legend, he wasn’t, at 5-foot-6, particularly short. He was also more than just the sturdy product of military training at Brienne and Paris, considering that his Corsican mother adamantly disciplined…

Somewhere outside the Magic Kingdom, there are bored people. Blissfully unaware of the suits who design the multiplex fodder they’ll be mentally munching, these people discover a movie about a pug-nosed and pugnacious little Hawaiian girl bearing the boy’s name of Lilo (voiced by Daveigh Chase) and her barely adult…

The challenge faced here by writer-director Robert Guédiguian (Charge!) is to keep his cheap melodrama from curdling his insightful societal appraisal. Michèle (Ariane Ascaride) is a dutiful young grandmother in Marseille, working nights packing fish to support her useless husband, Claude (Pierre Banderet), her junkie-prostitute daughter Fiona (Julie-Marie Parmentier) and…

This thoughtful and somewhat languid adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1904 play finds its beauty in the heady performance of Charlotte Rampling as Lyubov, childlike matriarch of a fast-fading period of social polarity. Returning from a long-term Paris retreat to her Russian estate and its complex web of disparate characters, not…