Festival de Cannes
MOVIE REVIEW
The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
“The Phoenician Scheme” is, for better or worse, an archetypal Wes Anderson movie. The Cannes Film Festival competition entry is, once again, a timeless motion storybook about affluent eccentrics that’s symmetrical, pastel and droll. While Mr. Anderson’s rigorous mise en scène is always to be admired, telling a tale like this in the techbro oligarchy era is a choice – sort of like the cinematic equivalent of let them eat cake.
Tribeca Festival
MOVIE REVIEW
Sacramento (2025)
Michael Angarano boasts a truly impressive resume that includes acting in films by Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, Cameron Crowe, Thomas Vinterberg, Wes Craven et al., but his own name only registers as vaguely familiar. Probably even lesser known is the fact that he has writing and directing credits under his belt, from 2017’s “Avenues.” For his sophomore directorial outing, “Sacramento,” which premiered at the Tribeca Festival, he has assembled a luminous cast that includes Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart and Maya Erskine, his real-life spouse. His filmmaking oeuvre so far recalls that of Zach Braff, dealing with growing pains of the manchild. And where is Mr. Braff now? Doing T-Mobile commercials.
Universal Pictures Content Group
MOVIE REVIEW
The Adults (2023)
This is a minor movie, your enjoyment of which will mostly depend on your tolerance for watching a group of adult siblings squabble like little kids, but if that is your thing you'll have a wonderful time.
Johnny Dell'Angelo/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Cryptozoo (2021)
Right now there is a huge fear being expressed in indie American cinema about people’s imaginations being stolen and our capacity for original wonder being stifled under the jackboots of government or corporate forces. The naked stoner at the start of the film (Michael Cera) tells his girlfriend about the horrendous vision he had of an armed and angry mob storming the Capitol. Then he climbs a giant fence, convinces his equally naked girlfriend, Amber (Louisa Krause) to follow him, and is gored to death by a unicorn. Yes, really. You can do that when it’s animated.
MOVIE REVIEW
Magic Magic (2013)
Andrés Gachón/2013 Sundance Film Festival
Sebastián Silva's "Magic Magic" starts off as it means to go on, in a very affected state of agitation. The camera hovers nervously around characters at waist height or below, apparently unable to look them in the eye; a brusque title card flashes on screen for a nanosecond before the camera returns to bothering someone's Skechers. Notionally a horror film, "Magic Magic" lays on the visual alienation tactics in large dollops, nearly turning into something potentially more interesting: a story built of nothing but constant fret and friction between a group of acquaintances (clearly not friends) on a Chilean road trip, where the internal stresses reach such a pitch that even the strongest of them shows signs of climbing the walls. By that point the weakest has already gone round the bend.
MOVIE REVIEW
This Is the End (2013)
Suzanne Hanover/
Columbia Pictures
When two Jewish filmmakers decide to make a comedy based on the biblical Judgment Day, questions about their motives naturally arise. After all, this isn’t nearly as benign as Barbra Streisand recording a couple of Christmas albums. While comedy in any form has often been a taboo-slinging free-for-all, what Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are attempting with “This Is the End” could easily be perceived as sacrilegious. On the flip side, they could be accused of heresy if they were outright singing the Christian gospel.
MOVIE REVIEW
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Kerry Hayes/Universal Studios
Fanboys and fellow critics have worked themselves into a tizzy over Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Smart, dependable reviewers have called the movie a “masterpiece” and a “generational milestone,” a “genius turn” in the "Shaun of the Dead" filmmaker’s career.
If a picture as gleefully vapid as this is what passes for a generational milestone in 2010, we’re in trouble. Mr. Wright’s adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s beloved graphic novel series (unread by this reviewer) is about as complete and coherent a film as was the blur of light and sound that comprised “Speed Racer.”
MOVIE REVIEW
Youth in Revolt (2010)
Chuy Chávez/Dimension Films
The big-screen-bound “Arrested Development” was in limbo because Michael Cera had declined until recently to reprise the role of George-Michael Bluth that he played in the cult TV series. It’s almost reprehensible, because every movie role Mr. Cera has had since the cancellation of the series has been a variation on that character.
MOVIE REVIEW
Year One (2009)
Suzanne Hanover/Columbia Pictures
“Year One” is precisely the sort of clunky high-concept comedy that’s become the norm for Harold Ramis. It’s a collection of throwaway gags in search of a narrative and some characters, made more in the tradition of “Bedazzled” than “Groundhog Day.” Lots of talented people slum their way through halfhearted comic situations that usually devolve into fart jokes, gay jokes or biblical puns.
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