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There is a lot of love in âOnce Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,â and quite a bit to enjoy. The screen is crowded with signs of Quentin Tarantinoâs well-established ardor â for the movies and television shows of the decades after World War II; for the vernacular architecture, commercial signage and famous restaurants of Los Angeles; for the female foot and the male jawline; for vintage clothes and cars and cigarettes. But the mood in this, his ninth feature, is for the most part affectionate rat...Watching the newest version of âThe Lion Kingâ â a big-screen celebrity-voiced musical trying its best to look like a television nature documentary â I recalled a line from John Gregory Dunneâs 1969 book âThe Studioâ that may be my all-time favorite sentence in the annals of movie writing. âSix months were devoted to teaching Chee Chee the Chimpanzee how to cook bacon and eggs,â Dunne wrote, referring to a character in âDoctor Dolittle,â one of many real animals cast in that big-budget, famil...One of the most interesting documentaries of 2018 was Robert Greeneâs âBisbee 17,â about a historical re-enactment in an Arizona town that exposed how past conflicts continue to fester. âI Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians,â the latest feature from Romanian director Radu Jude (âScarred Hearts,â âAferim!â), takes up a similar theme, showing that history is never neutral and that present-day culture wars often carry out the violence of the past by other means.Sam is 33 years old, unemployed and counting down the days to eviction from his apartment near the Los Angeles reservoir that gives âUnder the Silver Lakeâ its name. He doesnât seem too upset about his situation, though he is kind of a mopey guy. His malaise looks like more of a temperamental or existential condition than the response to a crisis. And he doesnât have it all that bad.At the beginning of âThe Man Who Killed Don Quixote,â text on-screen proclaims that what we are about to see has been â25 years in the making.â It might be even longer than that. Terry Gilliam has been tilting at this particular windmill since its eventual star, Adam Driver, was in elementary school. (Itâs not Driver who plays the Knight of Doleful Countenance, by the way, but Gilliam stalwart Jonathan Pryce.) The legends surrounding the project have made âQuixoteâ one of the great films maud...âLittleâ is about what happens when an adult woman (Regina Hall) is punished for her bullying, vainglorious ways by turning into her 13-year-old self (Marsai Martin). As the premise for a comedy, this kind of body switch is just about foolproof. âBig,â â13 Going on 30,â the several variations on the âFreaky Fridayâ theme â itâs almost always fun to watch grown-up souls inhabiting immature physiques, and vice versa. And so it is here, even if this go-round leaves a lot of potential hilarity on...In 1971, C.P. Ellis was the Exalted Cyclops of the Durham, North Carolina, klavern of the United Klans of America. Ann Atwater was a fair-housing activist, advocating for better treatment for the cityâs African-American residents. The beginning of their unlikely real-life friendship is the subject of âThe Best of Enemies,â the latest muddled and well-meaning big-screen attempt to find solace in the history of American racism.One thing we learn in âCaptain Marvelâ is that itâs pronounced MarVELL, like the English poet â or at least it used to be, on distant planets and right here on Earth, a windy rock also known as C-53. That was back in 1995, when most of this movie takes place and when the world as we know it had not yet been colonized by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes, of course, Marvel Comics had been around for decades, but when the heroine crashes through the roof of the Blockbuster Video store, landing...Just to reassure you: Madea does not die in âA Madea Family Funeral.â That would be too much to bear. But Tyler Perry â the characterâs creator and alter ego, and the writer, director and producer of this movie â has said that it will be her last film appearance. (She has been in 10 previous live-action features, starting with âDiary of a Mad Black Womanâ in 2005.) Weâll see how that goes â nothing in this world is more revocable than a pop-culture retirement â but the moviegoing public must ...âRuben Brandt, Collectorâ is a curiosity that wants to be more than that. The conceit is rather ingenious: to use a graphically inventive style of animation to manufacture a caper involving the theft of famous paintings. There are 13 of those, including works by VelĂĄzquez, Picasso, Manet and Warhol. The picturesque world they inhabit is a distorted mirror of our own, where people routinely defy gravity and have odd physical characteristics. A third eye. An extra breast. Elongated limbs. Facia...At the beginning of Asghar Farhadiâs âEverybody Knows,â everybody is getting ready for a big wedding in a small town in Spain. Most of the guests donât have far to travel, but Laura (PenĂ©lope Cruz) has come from Argentina with her two children. Itâs a big deal. Laura â whose husband, Alejandro (Ricardo DarĂn), wasnât able to make the trip â hasnât been home in years. She and the kids arrive with a flurry of <em xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">abrazos</em> and exclamations, and the viewer...)
