Watching My Stepmother Is An Alien decades after the fact, in an era where '80s nostalgia is overwhelming, it seems like there was a formula here. Take Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd, headlining another sci-fi effects comedy, throw in future Batman star Kim Basinger, nab Back to the Future composer Alan Silvestri, and put Richard Benjamin behind the camera (not exactly a household name, but hey, The Money Pit was a hit), and you've got a winner. Sadly, the results are significantly less than the sum of their parts.

Aykroyd plays Dr. Steve Mills, who's testing two things: the ability to send messages into deep space, and his boss's last nerve. When he fires up his organization's satellite dish beyond the recommended limits, thanks to a lightning storm raging and a jacket conveniently left in the right place, he manages to beam a message all the way to ano...Read the entire review

When she received a nomination for Best Director for Nomadland back in 2020, Chloe Zhao became only the seventh woman ever nominated for the award, and would go onto become the first woman of color to win. As a result of this historic achievement, Kino has released a Blu-ray of her debut feature, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Like Nomadland and her second feature, The Rider, the film finds Zhao integrating her camera into an existing community and culture, telling a story largely based on the lives of the people playing the characters (most of whom are first-time or non-professional actors).

Johnny Winters (John Reddy) is a young man thinking about his future outside of Pine Ridge, the Lakota reservation where he grew up. His girlfriend, Aurelia (Taysha Fuller), is moving to Los Angeles to attend college, and Johnny has decided to go with her. To make money, ...Read the entire review

When Mabel Wilton (Pauline Frederick) first lays her eyes on Edmund Lamont (Lew Cody), she has no idea what she's getting into, but that romantic spark ends up leading into a wild love triangle (or perhaps rectangle) where she'll compete for his affections with her own daughter, Jeanne (May McAvoy). Meanwhile, Edmund is up to his own complicated business, trying to sneak away a piece of the older Wilton's fortune in order to pay back a group of disgruntled investors he owes money to, led by Harvey Craig (Willard Louis).

Ernst Lubitsch's Three Women, his third American film, is an entertaining but wild ride, blending hints of screwball comedy (arguably more what Lubitsch is known for) with unexpectedly sad melodrama and a hint of a straight-up thriller. Performances are not especially memorable, but Lubitsch's assured direction and intelligently-written script (co-written with Hans Kraly, ada...Read the entire review

The early-to-mid 2000s marked two major divergent paths for the evolution of screen comedy. On the big screen, Judd Apatow's influence became inescapable after a string of hits starting with Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Superbad, giving way to an improv-heavy "riff" approach that only just now seems to be falling out of vogue. Meanwhile, TV went in the other direction, with the cult power of Cartoon Network's [adult swim] programming block paving the road for bizarro comedy shows like "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!" and "Robot Chicken." MTV's contribution to this strain of bizarre, absurdist TV comedy was "Wonder Showzen," a deranged riff on a children's TV program, complete with puppets and "educational" segments.

Checking out "Wonder Showzen" roughly 15 years after the fact via the new (and perhaps unusually belated) Complete Series DVD set inspire...Read the entire review

For just over a decade, John Hughes was one of the hippest, hottest names in Hollywood. Starting with The Breakfast Club in 1980, his work came to define a generation and launched the careers of several teen stars. That said, not everything he touched turned to gold: Career Opportunities was shot in 1989 and didn't manage to make it to theaters until 1991, following a tumultuous post-production process (and the breakout, career-defining box office success of Home Alone). Although the film eventually garnered a small cult following, it doesn't carry the same kind of respect that even Hughes' less-celebrated work like She's Having a Baby and Some Kind of Wonderful have. Watching it now, it's easy to see why...and why Hughes himself tried to take his name off of it before it was released.

Frank Whaley plays Jim Dodge, a young man out of high school sti...Read the entire review

In the long history of mismastched movie duos, it's hard to think of two men less matched than Malik Brody (Kadeem Hardison) and Toby Wong (Mark Dacascos). Malik is still licking his wounds from his impending divorce, and trying to get his fledgling songwriting career off the ground. Toby is, well, a special agent and martial arts expert with a bionic implant plugged into his chest that gives him additional speed and agility, which he's stolen from the Chinese mob and hopes to sell to a Los Angeles tech company for $5 million cash. Malik needs the money more than he doesn't need the trouble, so he agrees to drive Toby from SF to LA for half the dough. In pursuit: the Gregg Allman-esque hillbilly assassin Vic Madison (John Pyper-Ferguson) and his scuzzy right-hand man Hedgehog (Tracey Walter), who have been hired by Mr. Lau (James Shigeta), who runs the company that installed the implant. Also along ...Read the entire review

When the phone rings, Evelyn (Brenda Blethyn) has arguably reached rock bottom. Her daughter, Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook), has just stormed out of their crumbling flat after another Evelyn accidentally incited another screaming match between them. Evelyn knows that Roxanne has gone to find her boyfriend, Paul (Lee Ross), someone Roxanne has not yet allowed her to meet. Her brother, Maurice (Timothy Spall), with whom she used to have a close relationship, now keeps her at arm's length because his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan) despises Evelyn. Still shaking and sobbing, she answers the phone and hears the unfamiliar voice of a woman who identifies herself as Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). Hortense was adopted as a baby and is now looking for her birth mother, a process newly legal in the UK. She is looking for Evelyn.

Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies is a tremendous movie, a...Read the entire review

When Evan (Will Brill) awkwardly approaches Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) while she's out on a girls' night and asks for her number, she isn't expecting much. Then she runs into him again, outside a grocery store, and his confidence improves a little. They go on a date, and there's some chemistry, and by the second date, their connection is undeniable. Before long, they're living together in a cozy-looking home. Evan, a tattoo artist, takes appointments out of the back, and Renesha has just left a high-paying marketing gig to work at an animal adoption organization. Their life looks like it's settled into a comfortable groove. Then, after a night out on the town with a close friend, Renesha wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room with a menacing and passive-aggressively hostile man named Mike (Drew Fuller), still woozy from the effects of a drug that was supposed to be weed but rendered Renesha unconsciou...Read the entire review

It's the summer after graduation, and Bill Conrad (Eric Stoltz) is anxious to jump into adulthood. He's saved up enough money from his job at a bowling alley to move into his own apartment, and he's already dreaming of what having a place to himself will do for his dating life. Also dreaming about it: his somewhat unreliable friend and co-worker, Tom Drake (Chris Penn), who eventually convinces Bill to let him move in to help split the rent. Although both of them dream about beautiful women, they retain feelings for their would-be girlfriends: Bill's ex, Anita (Lea Thompson), now getting frisky in the back of the donut shop where she works with a greasy cop (Hart Bochner), and Eileen (Jenny Wright), who is endlessly frustrated by the way Tom's behavior seems to blow back on her instead of him. Meanwhile, Bill's little brother Jim (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) wanders around town getting into trouble, and ob...Read the entire review

Although her overbearing mother (Julie Hagerty) wants nothing more than for Viola (Amanda Bynes) to be the kind of girl who dreams of debutante balls, Viola's passion lies elsewhere. She and her friends are all on the soccer team, hoping to get into college on sports scholarships, a plan that hits a roadblock when not enough players sign up and the school cuts girls' soccer. The girls petition to turn the boys' soccer team into a co-ed sport, but the coach shoots them down. Luckily for Viola, her brother Sebastian has his own passion for music, and when he ducks out of the first two weeks of school at Illyria, she gets a crazy idea: pose as her brother for two weeks, get on the soccer team, and beat her former school in an upcoming rivalry game.

For the 15th anniversary of She's the Man, Paramount is offering up the movie's Blu-ray debut, and seeing the film again in 2021 couldn't pos...Read the entire review

It's the middle of the summer, and all Connie (Laura Dern) and her friends want is to enjoy their freedom. Connie, Laura (Margaret Welsh), and Jill (Sara Inglis) spend all of their time hanging out at the beach or the mall, talking about and sometimes flirting with boys (or at least pranking each other by flirting on another's behalf). As the summer goes on, Connie and Laura work up even more nerve, sneaking out of the house to go to the hot dog stand where the older kids spend their evenings. Connie's behavior frustrates her mother Katherine (Mary Kay Place), but her attempts to try and talk with Connie devolve into mutual hostility, while Connie's father Harry (Levon Helm) mostly tries to avoid getting involved. Then, while at the hot dog stand, Connie catches the eye of a mysterious man named Arnold Friend (Treat Williams), whose charismatic exterior hides something more sinister.

On the su...Read the entire review

In 1973, between March 10th and the 13th, the first (and last) National Black Political Convention was held in Gary, Indiana. Over 10,000 people attended from all over the country, many representing their home states. All sorts of important Black political and cultural figures appeared, including Jesse Jackson, Amiri Baraka, Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory Richard Roundtree, Isaac Hayes, and both Dr. Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King. Filmmaker William Greaves, best-known for the 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm and its 2005 \"sequel,\" was there documenting the event on his own dime. The resulting film, known initially as Nationtime - Gary is a political powder keg, a rousing and culturally significant portrait of a watershed moment in time -- so, of course, it is only now, with this 2020 restoration, completed seven years after Greaves\' death, that the film can be seen in its fu...Read the entire review

Unbeknownst to his wife Christine (Paula Marshall), the happy home life that Casey (Thomas Jane) has created for the both of them represents his decision to turn over a new leaf. However, his criminal past threatens to blow up his new normal when his old buddy Nick (Aaron Eckhart) unexpectedly calls, claiming to be swinging through town on his way to get married. Reluctantly, Casey allows Nick to drop his bags off and potentially stay for dinner, but becomes furious when he discovers that one of said bags is filled to the brim with heroin. Hoping to keep his house and conscience clean, Casey flushes the drugs down his kitchen sink, only for a succession of increasingly dangerous people, including wannabe rapper Ice (Glenn Plummer), sadistic bombshell Dallas (Paulina Porizkova), torture artist Billy (James Le Gros), and corrupt cop Kasarov (Mickey Rourke), to pop by looking for either the drugs, or $...Read the entire review

Nola (Sabrina Carpenter) has never known anything other than life on the road. She and her father Clint (Steven Ogg) live out of their well-worn VW Westfalia, roaming around in search of odd handyman jobs that keep them fed and the vehicle maintained. Nola isn't unhappy, necessarily: she has a decent relationship with her father, even though she doesn't share his restlessness, and she desperately wants to know more about her mother, Cheryl, who left when she was an infant. The day after Clint finally agrees to take Nola to New Orleans, the place she was born and named after, he dies unexpectedly, forcing Nola to fend for herself as she tries to figure out the next destination on her lifelong road trip.

A glance at the plot of The Short History of the Long Road might inspire comparisons to Nomadland, Chloe Zhao's film about modern American drifters, now up for several major aw...Read the entire review

After both of their respective long-term relationships end, Abby (Kat Dennings) has a plan to ease her heartbreak: spend Thanksgiving with her lifelong best friend Molly (Malin Akerman). Unbeknownst to Abby, Molly's solution to heartbreak involves a handsome philanthropist rebound, Jeff (Jack Donnelly). Before Molly can tell Abby that Jeff will be present, Molly's friends Lauren (Aisha Tyler) and Dan (Deon Cole) beg to come over after their plans fall through, plus, Molly's mother Helen (Jane Seymour) shows up uninvited. Before long, what was supposed to be a one-on-one friend hang has turned into a crowded holiday celebration, with several potential new paramours for Abby, Molly's older ex Gunnar (Ryan Hanson), and several other friends and acquaintances in tow (Christine Taylor, Chelsea Peretti, and more).

As the midbudget film goes extinct in Hollywood, there has been an increase in low-bud...Read the entire review

When the mob makes the risky decision to take out a made man, Louie (John Tormey) turns to the one guy he knows he can trust: the quiet, eccentric Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker). Ghost Dog carries himself less like an assassin and more like a samurai, following the tenets of the Hagakure, right down to his belief that he is Louie's retainer (follower of a lord) after Louie saved his life years earlier. He can only be contacted by carrier pigeon, and his closest friend is an ice cream vendor named Raymond (Isaach De Bankole) who speaks French, a language he doesn't understand. The hit itself goes smoothly, but nobody involved expected Louise (Tricia Vessey), daughter of big boss Vargo (Henry Silva), to be a first-person witness to the murder. Worried about being implicated in the hit, Vargo orders his men to kill Ghost Dog, setting off a circuitous chain of events he could not have for...Read the entire review

It is 1962, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the day has just begun at a rural elementary school when the nuclear alert system starts ringing. For a few minutes, nobody takes it seriously -- it must be some sort of unannounced drill -- and then the fear begins to set in. The same alarm is ringing at the local high school. The phone company says seven things would have to go wrong for it to be a false alarm. Nobody can get an authority on the phone. The principal, Mr. Calkins (William Daniels), makes the decision to send the children home, as they would be if the alert was real. With several students trailing behind, Mrs. Andrews (Nancy Marchand) makes the trek, on foot, across the local countryside, as they all wonder if the war has actually begun.

When lists are compiled of the important filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s, Frank and Eleanor Perry are arguably overlooked in favor ...Read the entire review

Fed up with his job selling televisions in a generic shopping mall (a position he has already been fired from) and filled with contempt for his surroundings (the fictional town of Enfield, Arizona), Nick (Tim Roth) informs his girlfriend Beth (Bridget Fonda) that they are moving to Butte, Montana in two days. Beth is not especially excited about this, nor is Nick's ex/Beth's friend Carol (Phoebe Cates), but both of them seem prepared to accept it anyway, until Nick drives off into the desert ahead of schedule, leaving Beth at home to pack and wonder whether or not he's coming back. As she contemplates her relationship and what exactly a future in Butte would entail, her solitude is interrupted by Sid (Eric Stoltz), who has been hired to repaint the house before the new tenants move in. Over the course of two days, the four of them interrogate their own desires, changing the trajectory of their lives...Read the entire review

One of the trickier things about history is that history is a fallible record. What we think of fact is dependent on hundreds, perhaps thousands of factors, many of which don't actually have any bearing on what happened. This becomes even truer as we move away from a traditional history and into something closer to canon. Claudia Weill's Girlfriends is, by all accounts, an important piece of independent filmmaking, one that was directed by, written by, and focuses on women. Internet searching turns up no official box office data, but everyone involved remembers it being an impressive theatrical success (and not just in context with its $500,000 budget). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, and was championed by director Stanley Kubrick, who helped get it distribution through Warner Bros. Yet, the film was only first made available on DVD in 2010, and it took anoth...Read the entire review

All genres have a formula, but the romantic comedy is one of those genres, like the inspirational sports movie, where the formula is so elemental, so well-known, that it takes real effort to invigorate that formula with fresh and interesting ideas. The audience knows that the protagonists are probably going to fall in love -- that's what they came to see -- but there are roughly 90 to 120 minutes to fill before that can happen. So many movies invent artificial ways to keep their characters apart, and try and fill the time with side characters and B-threads that have little or nothing to do with the romance at the center. Moonstruck, now part of The Criterion Collection, is possibly a perfect example of a romantic comedy where the journey feels justified, and every piece of the ensemble resonates with humor or truth both individually and as part of the whole.

Loretta Castorini (Cher) s...Read the entire review

Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) is on the cusp of a major life change. After a period of philandering and fooling around (no doubt partially facilitated through his minor celebrity status as a late-night jazz DJ in the small California coastline town of Carmel-by-the-Sea), he's considering not only a career change (with his resume out to a TV producer), but also thinking about his ex-girlfriend Tobie (Donna Mills), who left him and cut off contact because he couldn't stay faithful to her. The good news is that Tobie reappears, and is willing to consider reconciliation; the bad news is that she appears after Dave has what he believes is a one-night stand with Evelyn (Jessica Walter), who has been calling into his radio show anonymously, asking him to play Erroll Garner's "Misty." Evelyn seems nice at first, but quickly becomes possessive and then deranged, with a mind to making sure nothing comes betwee...Read the entire review

In Tokyo, in some unknown year, Yakuza industrialists move in on a slum with plans to build a nuclear power plant. The residents of the slum are mostly teenagers, and all of them seem to belong to one of two major gangs (each with their own punk rock band). Some of them work day jobs, including a group of bikers who allow themselves to be hired on to help in the construction of the power plant, but most of them resent authority, quitting square jobs the moment the powers-that-be threaten to trample on their rebellious attitude. As the Yakuza's effort to construct the plant becomes increasingly oppressive, a war breaks out between the punks, the Yakuza, and the police, culminating in a chaotic "battle of the bands" where the entirety of the slum rises up in an anarchic, explosive riot.

Burst City is an incredibly divisive piece of filmmaking, at once capturing the anarchic spirit of fi...Read the entire review

Although the Civil War rages in the fields and forests nearby, inside the Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies, little has changed. Ms. Farnsworth (Geraldine Page) keeps a strict eye on her six young students, with the help of graduate and fellow teacher Edwina (Elizabeth Hartman), and Hallie (Mae Mercer), a slave. They are content to keep their heads down and weather the storm, but the storm finds its way to them in the form of Corporal John McBurney (Clint Eastwood), a wounded Union soldier who is discovered by Amy (Pamelyn Ferdin) while she is out picking mushrooms. After some hemming and hawing, Ms. Farnsworth agrees to let McBurney stay until his wounds are healed, at which point they will turn him over to Confederate soldiers, but the curiosity of the girls -- and McBurney's own aggressive manipulation of them -- is a powder keg of ingredients waiting to blow up.

Clint Eastwo...Read the entire review

Much like its protagonist, writer/director Allison Anders' Grace of My Heart exists on the periphery of the mainstream. Released the same year as Tom Hanks' similarly-themed directorial debut That Thing You Do!, Grace is a more sprawling, more intimate story, blending bits of Carole King and real institutions like the Brill Building (a legendary hit factory in the 1960s) into the fictional story of Edna Buxton, a would-be steel heiress who dreams of becoming a singer/songwriter. The film isn't always successful, but it's always interesting, with Anders finding uniquely interesting elements and arcs to focus on in Edna's tumultuous journey through a rapidly-changing music industry.

Edna is played by Illeana Douglas, and she and Anders are the two pillars of the film. There is an unforced earnestness to the way she plays Edna, without ever crossing over into naive...Read the entire review

Alex Rogan has big dreams. Currently stuck working as the de facto handyman in the trailer park where he lives with his mom and younger brother, he intends to go to an out-of-state college with his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) and leave small-town life behind. As it turns out, a great opportunity does land in his lap, but it's not from the bank processing his loan application, but a mysterious man who calls himself Centauri (Robert Preston). As it turns out, Alex's favorite pasttime, playing the Starfighter arcade machine in the trailer park picnic area, is actually a sly recruiting tool that Centauri is using to try and find anyone with enough skill to join the battle against the Ko-Dan Armada. At first, Alex is reluctant, but with the encouragement of his unflaggingly optimistic alien co-pilot Grig (Dan O'Herlihy), he finds himself flying into battle as the last hope for the heroic R...Read the entire review

In August, with Black Lives Matter protests against police violence prompting discussions of racial justice and representation across the country, the New York Times published an article about The Criterion Collection. In conversation with the company's president, Peter Becker, they questioned why, with a modern library of over a thousand titles, Criterion had only inducted nine films by Black directors, as well as passing on offers to pick up films like Daughters of the Dust, which remained unavailable on disc for over 10 years afterward. Claudine, the story of a Black single mother trying to balance the needs of her family with her desire for a relationship, was probably already licensed and in the works when the article ran, not to mention it isn't by a Black director, but the film (which does not seem to come up often in discussion of great sociopolitical films) is still a valu...Read the entire review

In 1983, UK police arrested Dennis Nilsen, who would go on to confess to at least twelve murders, making him one of the notorious British serial killers of all time. Cold Light of Day is simultaneously a fictionalization of Nilsen's killing spree (it cuts out almost 12 victims, focusing instead on the three killings that Nilsen committed right before he was caught, and suggesting psychological motivations for his crimes), and yet it also feels chillingly faithful, in that writer/director Fhiona Louise captures a haunting verisimilitude about the actual act of the murders and covering it up. It's a polarizing movie (it simultaneously won an award at the Venice International Film Festival and unfairly marked the end of Louise's filmmaking career), but those who are prepared for the tone and style of the movie should find something to appreciate.

In the film, Nilsen is reimagined as Jord...Read the entire review

When a friend reluctantly tells unemployed writer Christine (Sandy McLeod) that she knows of a job opening, Christine is just happy to have a lead on work, but it turns out that taking tickets at Variety, a Times Square porn theater, is a transformational experience for her. The work itself is simple, but being there is like a peek into a world that Christine is fascinated by: the seemingly lonely men, who come to the theater and sit apart from one another, transfixed by the women on screen. She begins telling sexual stories to her boyfriend, Mark (Will Patton), who does not seem pleased. Eventually, she fixates on a specific patron, an older man named Louie (Richard M. Davidson), who wears a three-piece suit to the films and exudes a certain type of confidence. When he invites her on a date but is forced to leave abruptly, she starts following him, trying to figure out more about him -- a voyeur wa...Read the entire review

Watching Babyteeth, I had a thought: serious or terminal illness dramas are the movie equivalent of Schrodinger's cat. No matter what the filmmakers do, their awareness of creating a work to be observed, and the audience's awareness of the baggage that comes with that (both pop culture and real-world baggage) fundamentally alters the viewing experience. Perhaps that's because, for the most part, these movies go one of two directions: inspirational, or heart-wrenchingly sad. Director Shannon Murphy and writer Rita Kalnejais (adapting her own novel) work hard with Babyteeth to defeat both of these factors, consciously avoiding many of the cliches that come with the territory and attempting to navigate a path that finds spots of joy without pumping her story up into something symbolic for the viewer. Their efforts aren't entirely successful, but they're admirable just the same.

...Read the entire review

Following the sudden dissolution of her marriage, clinical psychiatrist Dianne Cruise (Talia Shire) wants to look back in order to go forward. Her strategy: travel around the country to check in on a trio of her exes, each of which had some sort of emotional significance for her. There's Jeff (Richard Jordan), the documentary and commercial filmmaker who asked her to marry him three times; Eric (John Belushi), the high school boyfriend who emotionally manipulated her and made her life hell afterward; and Lewis, her first serious boyfriend -- and, as it turns out, a casualty of the Vietnam War, leading Dianne to connect with his emotionally stunted younger brother Wayne (Keith Carradine) instead.

Old Boyfriends began life as Old Girlfriends, co-written by Paul Schrader and his brother Leonard. Sensing a shift in the zeitgeist, Paul re-configured it for a female lead, and when ...Read the entire review

Having seen probably a thousand films labeled "cult classics" over the years, there are two core elements that earn a movie the label. The first is just that the film is legitimately well-made or inspired, containing enough of a unique and striking sensibility that there's something worth earnestly appreciating. On the other hand, many coast by on a similar-yet-different factor: the film is just so strange and off-the-wall that watching it is kind of like rubbernecking, existing years after the fact as an odd pop culture artifact. In the best cases, a movie will be a little of both. Given the lavish treatment that MVD Visual has given to Split Second, there are plenty of people out there who have been waiting for this, but as someone who never caught it on HBO, the film reads like the latter more than the former.

It's the distant future of 2008, and global warming has caused the polar...Read the entire review

It is winter in the 1880s in Budapest, and two twin girls, Dora and Lili, are selling matches on the street to try and survive. They pass out for the evening, and two businessmen find the girls. They flip a coin, and each man takes one girl, off to live wildly disparate lives. Dora (Dorota Segda) is the carefree one, living a posh life hustling gullible rich men out of their money, and luring them into bed for her own pleasure. Lili, meanwhile, has become a revolutionary, working on a plot to bomb a the minister of the interior. Neither seems to dwell much on their missing sister, wrapped up as they are in their own pursuits. In the end, they find an unconscious link in the form of Z (Oleg Yankovsky), a businessman who is entranced by the inventions of Thomas Edison, and who falls in love with both women, without knowing they are different people.

My Twentieth Century is an enchanti...Read the entire review

Grandma (Tsai Chin) is set in her ways. She lives alone, following the death of her husband, occasionally sees her son Howard (Eddie Yu) and his family, including his wife, and their children, including her favorite grandson, Little David (Mason Yam). She has a routine involving prayer, exercises at the pool, and soap operas. She also sees a fortune teller, Lei Lei (Wai Ching Ho), who she refers to as her doctor (and who even writes "prescriptions" for feng shui). On one of her visits, Lei Lei tells Grandma that she's going to become very lucky on October 28th. Grandma goes to a casino and racks up a big win, only to lose it all on a final card game. Depressed, she gets on the bus back home, only to discover her seatmate has died en route, leaving behind a bag full of cash. Desperate for the fortune to pay off, she takes the money, only to find herself pursued by various gangsters who want the cash ...Read the entire review

The Public Eye feels like a passion project in the best sense of the word. A period film about a tabloid photographer with dreams of artistic legitimacy, and his tentative, uncertain hints of romance with a widowed nightclub owner that he isn't sure he can trust -- it's too specific to be a gig for hire, especially when one factors in the film's subtle approach and patient pacing. Although star Joe Pesci's recent Oscar win for GoodFellas and the backing of Robert Zemeckis (himself coming off of the one-two commercial punch of the Back to the Future trilogy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit) helped The Public Eye get set up at Universal, it's easy to imagine executives essentially forgetting about the film after greenlighting it, leaving writer/director Howard Franklin to make the movie exactly the way he envisioned it.

When day turns to night in 1940s Ne...Read the entire review

Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross), one of the music industry's biggest stars, is struggling with her next move. Still smarting from the mixed critical and commercial response the last time she released a new record, she's been maintaining her popularity through touring and a greatest hits album. On the advice of her manager Jack (Ice Cube), she's putting out a live greatest hits album, and considering a Vegas residency, but she's (rightfully) concerned that her fans will think her career is entering a twilight phase. One person in Grace's corner: her assistant Maggie (Dakota Johnson), who has worked for Grace for three years. Maggie not only believes that Grace should move forward with a new album, but she's spent her free time in the studio secretly producing her own version of Grace's live album, with dreams of turning producing into a career. The thought of openly asking Grace if she can produce he...Read the entire review