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. Read More

When Marlon Wayans was a kid in New York City, he lived down the street from a plant that printed Mad magazine. He and his brothers would read copies for free, savoring the vicious wit of the movie parodies. Years later, he became the co-creator of a series of successful parody movies in the same vein, from “Scary Movie” and “Dance Flick” to his latest, “A Haunted House.” Read More

“Zero Dark Thirty” is extraordinary not because it’s about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, but because Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow uses the subject to examine related, and equally important, topics. In another filmmaker’s hands, the movie would likely have been something to tolerate during awards season before being forgotten. Yet Bigelow has created the best film of 2012. Read More

As its redemptive hero toils on a chain gang, traverses a mountain, trudges through sewers and enters a revolutionary barricade, (among other intense trials), the movie musical “Les Miserables” is a zero-subtlety spectacle for the Occupy age and the current Oscar-campaign climes. But it also is a risk-taking and frequently affecting movie that sings its not entirely artificial heart out. Read More