Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns called in an expert when making “Side Effects,” their new twisty, puzzle-box thriller about a depressed young woman and her relationship with two psychiatrists.
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At the beginning of San Francisco-based playwright Octavio Solis’ riveting new drama, “Se Llama Cristina,” premiering at Magic Theatre, a couple is slumped in a drug-induced stupor at a Formica table in a bare, seedy room.
Surfacing, they’re so wrecked they don’t even know their own names, let alone where they are and why, and who the other person is. The man is horrified to see a needle sticking out of his own arm and drug paraphernalia on the table.
“I never shoot up!” he declares.
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While no one expects a film titled “Bullet to the Head” to be a long-lost sequel to “Brief Encounter,” fans of action-flick biggies Walter Hill and Sylvester Stallone might figure the debut collaboration by the director and actor to offer personality and verve.
Yet the beef-and-blam drama is a cliched, lackluster attempt to re-create the spirit of former glory.
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“Warm Bodies” is a new kind of zombie movie — the hero actually is a zombie. And he’s not just any hero. He’s a romantic lead who falls in love with a human girl.
Writer-director Jonathan Levine (“50/50”) and actors Dave Franco and Analeigh Tipton recently visited The City to chat about the movie, opening today, which is based on a young-adult novel by Isaac Marion.
For Levine, zombie movies are about collective vs. individual consciousness.
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Like last year’s Snow White movies, “Mirror Mirror” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” the new “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” comes from the Brothers Grimm, although in this case, the Grimms merely recorded a German tale that, before 1812, was an oral tradition.
But unlike 2012’s movies, “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” bravely gets a little crazy.
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Like last year’s Snow White movies, “Mirror Mirror” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” the new “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” comes from the Brothers Grimm, although in this case, the Grimms merely recorded a German tale that, before 1812, was an oral tradition.
But unlike 2012’s movies, “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” bravely gets a little crazy.
It begins with a simple idea: After young Hansel and Gretel kill the witch in the cottage made of gingerbread and candy, they continue on their path, killing more witches and rescuing more kidnapped kids.
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“Broken City” offers little to brighten the cockles of moviegoers’ hearts during this month that’s typically a vacuum for film lovers. While the actors make it watchable, it’s bogged down by cliches and predictable plot turns, and it is ultimately a familiar and forgettable political drama.
Director Allen Hughes — whose collaborations with his twin brother, Albert, include “Menace II Society,” “Dead Presidents” and “In Hell,” — continues to depict humans’ baser aspects in this solo effort, written by playwright Brian Tucker.
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Directed by newcomer Andy Muschietti and produced by veteran Guillermo del Toro, the new horror movie “Mama” reveals how scary motherhood can be.
One woman who surprisingly finds herself in a parental role is Annabel (Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain), a black-haired, raccoon-eyed rock ’n’ roller who once let out a happy “whoop” upon discovering she wasn’t pregnant.
Her boyfriend is Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), an artist who spent five years searching for his missing brother and two nieces.
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The Mostly British Film Festival opens Thursday, celebrating its fifth anniversary. Oldies, upcoming releases and films that local moviegoers may never otherwise get to see will screen over eight days.
Twenty-five films of varied genres from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and South Africa screen at the Vogue Theatre in the series, which benefits the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation.
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Bradley Boatwright is in big trouble. The title character of “Troublemaker” has more on his mind than any 12-year-old kid in working-class Rhode Island should have to face.
In Dan LeFranc’s rollicking comedy, now making its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Bradley doesn’t really make trouble. He just attracts it.
He’s being bullied by the town rich kid, Jake Miller (a sneering Robbie Tann). Adding insult to injury, Jake’s dad (Thomas Jay Ryan) is courting Bradley’s single mom (Jennifer Regan) — and recommending that Bradley be shipped off to reform school.
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