The series manages to make its 10 half-hour episodes feel much longer than they actually are.
There’s no attempt to hide that the film is pure fan service, a greatest-hits mashup of Spider-Man’s cinematic legacy.
The film’s improvisational feel helps to ground a fable-esque narrative in a discernible reality.
The new HBO series Divorce has a clear barometer for humor, though less for empathy.
It becomes too cruel to generate laughter for anyone who would empathize with Ferrell’s tantrum-prone man-child.
The thinness of the material is only accentuated by the cast’s spirited efforts to pad it out.
Heaven Is for Real is by Christians, for Christians, and deliberately, if subtly, antagonistic toward everyone else.
What starts as a tense thriller eventually evolves into a darkly humorous and astute character study, a Coen brothers-esque comedy of errors by way of a Jack Londonian survival story.
The film arrives on home video in a package that makes good on its swelling rep as an American indie video nasty.
Throughout, the actors grippingly and fearlessly delight in etching their characters’ incompatible agendas.
A slick, professional high-def disc that’s designed a little like a handmade mixtape.
Imagine you’re at a picnic, and you have a paper plate.
Payne’s films don’t have the distinct visual styles of those by Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson, but they’re quickly recognizable just the same.
Clichés and contrivances and corniness, oh my!
The film overflows with characters even more repugnant than the irony of its groan-worthy title.
All the self-awareness and saucy banter in the world can’t make Easy A consistently funny.
The only laughs elicited by All About Steve are those of incredulity at its blanket ineptitude.
Score a point against imaginative kiddie fare.
It’s possible to imagine a sardonic filmmaker like Lars von Trier doing justice to the premise of Imagine That.
Jake Goldberger has lassoed a great cast to ham it up in this comical homage to Billy Wilder’s classic noirs.