In the action thriller The Gunman, Sean Penn, at age 54, looks neither old nor young. He’s been in training to look this age for a long time. Even as a relative kid, in 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High, his sailor-on-shore-leave mug had a wry, quizzical roughness to it;…
A new aspect of the 20th season of Dancing With The Stars is the viewers at home can watch a livestream of each of the couples practicing throughout the day. Congratulations, you have enough time to waste to watch an actual dance rehearsal that isn’t your 4-year-old daughter! Personally, I…
There are some simple reality TV truths. All country artists will choose Blake Shelton as their coach on The Voice, the dads on Teen Mom will hate their lives, and Derek Hough will win every season of Dancing With The Stars until the day he dies…
There are two kinds of humanist movie. One kind shows human beings struggling against the most unspeakable horrors, sorrows or injustices and still, somehow, emerging with their essential goodness intact. The second, thornier type gives us people doing terrible things to one another — screaming, cheating, and generally making life…
It’s an ironic truth that directors fascinated by robots tend to make inhuman movies. From Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner to last year’s Transcendence, these stories that ponder the gap between man and machine often reveal filmmakers unsure of where they fit in — they get so involved in the question…
Start at the feet and pan up Adam Sandler: the sneakers, the pants that never quite fit, the sloped shoulders, the furrowed brow and world-weary sulk. He’s a cartoon man drawn the same in every movie, whether he’s in a lonely walk-up or a McMansion crammed with kids. Sandler plays…
There’s no empowerment message embedded in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, no “Girls can do anything!” cheerleader vibe. That’s why it’s wonderful. This is a straight, no-chaser fairy story, a picture to be downed with pleasure. It worries little about sending the wrong message and instead trusts us to decode its politics,…
“Mark Twain said boxing is the only sport where a slave, if he’s successful, can rub shoulders with royalty,” says former heavyweight Mike Tyson, who once knocked out 19 opponents in a row. “Can you imagine that? Just by fighting another human being, he can meet a king, a prince,…
Jaume Collet-Serra’s Run All Night, a shoot-’em-up about an out-to-pasture hit man desperate to keep his boss and best friend from whacking his son, is humid with testosterone. It’s the sort of film where a woman accidentally caught by the camera practically apologizes and scurries away from the lens. When…
Almost immediately after it was released, the 2011 stealth hit Best Exotic Marigold Hotel became more a punchline than a movie. Who knew “older” people were so starved for pictures featuring gorgeously shot exotic locales, not to mention people falling in love, falling out of love or desperately hoping for…
The world is a terrible place. That’s the uncompromising truth with which Tina Fey and Robert Carlock begin Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), their follow-up to the under-seen but culturally monumental 30 Rock. The very first scenes of Unbreakable’s first season, which will be released in its binge-able entirety on March…
There are five reasons why Fox’s Empire has become a breakout hit, and on this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, we run down why the show, introduced as a mid-season replacement, has surged to nearly 14 million viewers an episode by its eighth week. Joining Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl…
Leonard Nimoy has died at the age of 83. Both on camera and off, he exemplified the best of what Star Trek, and thus humanity, could represent. Part of that was Trek’s writing, of course. But it was Nimoy who took what was on the page — often repaired what…
TV shows aren’t too different from people in at least one respect: The longer they’ve been around, the less interest they tend to garner. But the sixth season of FX’s beloved spy spoof Archer is like few others. It’s an “unrebooting” of the previous year, in which creator Adam Reed,…
If Grace Kelly had been raised by coyotes, she might have stalked the screen like Focus’ Margot Robbie, a va-va-voom blonde with bite. Robbie is too beautiful to play normal, too sly to play nice. Miscast as a shy saint in Craig Zobel’s upcoming Sundance hit Z for Zachariah, she…
Sport is a natural metaphor for war. Two sides in two colors face each other on a field, each with its pride and physical safety at risk. Their leaders scheme plans of attack, drawing arrows toward the enemy’s flank. And backing the teams in the stands — or, more often,…
Ten years ago, Wellington, New Zealand, was less welcoming of vampires. When Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, two unknown comedians, walked the streets in velvet frocks and ruffles for a 2005 sketch, dudes would drive by and scream homophobic slurs. Says Clement, “We were constantly abused.” Over the next decade,…
A year in the making, ESPN’s 30 for 30 short film chronicling the rise and tragedy of Dallas’ famous Von Erich wrestling family is set to air at 5 p.m. Friday. The news, confirmed by D Magazine and Kevin Von Erich on Twitter marks a new addition to the long…
There was an awkward moment between Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson and her mom, Melanie Griffith, on the red carpet before the Oscars on Sunday. But the world got to see Johnson’s impressive talent for pretending uncomfortable situations don’t seem to bother her (see also: Fifty Shades of…
Kevin Costner eases white America into the now with McFarland, USA, we hear about the Berlin Film Festival’s highs (Queen of Earth) and lows (Knight of Cups), and dip into the lukewarm waters of a second Hot Tub Time Machine movie. Also, there’s much praise for teen comedy The DUFF…
American Sniper notwithstanding, the first fresh multiplex trend to emerge in 2015 is Old White Dudes Learning How to Share Their World. First came Kevin Costner in the sour Black or White, playing a coot who discovers that black folks love their kids, too, even in South Los Angeles. Who…
It seems as if, for every 10 issue-oriented documentaries that essentially function as long-form magazine articles with images attached, we get perhaps one doc that exemplifies the methods of “direct cinema” — the observational mode of documentary filmmaking that allows audiences to observe from a detached remove. That mode is…
