The prolific Barcelona screenwriter and director Cesc Gay gave us the man and his dog dramedy “Truman,” and the edgier “The People Upstairs,” aka “Sentimental,” just remade by Olivia Wilde as “The Invite.” So when you see his name on … Continue reading →

For a preachy, unevenly-acted thriller about the threat of a school shooting, the indie “Honor Student” certainly punches above its weight. Director and co-writer Tamika Miller gets into the messy politics of gun control, references earlier school massacres, from Columbine … Continue reading →

It may be a cliche, but there are few more “liberating” images in the cinema than having your heroine toss aside convention and decorum and dunk her head in the public village fountain in some eternally sunny corner of Provence. … Continue reading →

That cast. That director. That gut! This October, we’ve got ourselves a Hail Mary for an Oscar nomination for the movies’ Most Valuable Player.

A grab bag of thriller tropes and action beats is tossed at another “human trafficking” thriller, this one from Spain, in “The Marked Woman.” We’ve got an amnesiac with Jason Bourne skills. Because one never forgets one’s martial arts training. … Continue reading →

One of the cinema’s great talents, grand figures and a gentleman in full, Sam Neill has died. He’d fought a deadly cancer off, but that battle must have taken a terrible toll to get him to “cancer free.” He was … Continue reading →

Earnest, preachy and melodramatic to a fault, “Mississippi Scholar” is exactly the sort of movie that the independent cinema was born to create. Director and co-writer Marcus Bleecker’s film may traffic in tropes and cliches. But it has a vivid … Continue reading →

As I saw parents — well, GRANDparents — gathering the grandkids and emptying their wallets at the ticket counter of a Regal Cinemas in Falwelltown, Va. Friday, I had to shake my head at what they were mostly going to … Continue reading →

On its surface or beneath that surface, “The Invite” is a date movie. So go with your significant other. But speaking from experience, don’t be surprised if the whispered asides — in between elbows in the ribs — go something … Continue reading →

A Korean classic of the pre K-pop explosion, flip-phone era returns to theaters as subtle, sweet and soulful as ever. “Take Care of My Cat” is a young women’s coming-of-age tale, set in the 2001 present, a film that, synth-pop … Continue reading →