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Beware Opening Night films at film festivals. More often than not, they disappoint. Such is the case with Christine Lahti's My First Mister, which was given the undisputed honor of opening the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. From audience members a...

There is a scene in Nil by Mouth, actor Gary Oldman's directorial debut, that is excruciatingly difficult to watch. It's not especially graphic, since the gruesome details take place out of frame, but anyone with an imagination can conjure up ...

Edson Oda’s debut feature, Nine Days, is a pure allegory; the film works as an extended philosophical rumination but fails as a story. Although interesting in many aspects, Nine Days is as often frustrating as it is compelling, and the denou...

In the tradition of Norma Rae and Silkwood, North Country is the story of one woman's struggle against an inflexible corporation. Despite some third-act flaws that weaken the conclusion, North Country does what it sets out to do: inspire and uplif...

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Novitiate is the even-handedness with which it treats religion in general and 1960s era Catholicism in particular. Set mostly within the confines of a convent, the feature debut of writer/director Margare...

Oh, Hi! can best be described as an interesting failure. The underlying idea seems promising: start out the movie as a standard-order rom-com then shift into Misery territory. Make the whole thing a dark, twisted comedy that offers commentary on t...

The turning point in Christina Ricci's career came when she chose to appear in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Since then, nothing has been the same for the up-and-coming performer. Before the 1997 feature, Ricci had turned up in host of bland, family-o...

The Outrun, based on the memoir of the same name by Amy Liptrot, takes a motion picture staple – one of addiction and recovery – and re-invents it into something fresh and engaging. Presenting the narrative in a fragmentary, non-linear fashion...

Owning Mahowny casts an unflinching gaze into a window of addiction of a sort not often portrayed in movies. Based on the true-life book "Stung" by Gary Stephen Ross, the film chronicles the facts of the case of a Toronto bank vice president who s...

Parallel Mothers, Pedro Almodovar’s 15th movie since exploding onto the international scene with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, is two movies crammed into one and both suffer at least a little by having to share time with the other. ...