(Lea Seydoux, above)
By Richard von Busack
Remember that Versailles-Barbie vision of Marie-Antoinette, purported by Sofia Coppola a few years back? It’s quite swept away by Benoit Jacquot’s intense Farewell, My Queen. (Farewell, My Queen tickets and …

By Richard von Busack
A gumption-crazed little girl survives what looks like post-industrial living in Beasts of the Southern Wild (tickets and showtimes here). She’s so cute that she’s even called “Hushpuppy.” And if you don’t …

By Richard von Busack
This emo and bloody reboot is about how our hero fights a nine foot tall lizard-man. But it’s so muddled that it’s hard to tell what else The Amazing Spider-Man is about.
Some …

Mom (Henriette Steenstrup) is a Scandinavian look-alike of SNL‘s Debbie Downer and literally works someplace where they unload the turnip trucks—she wears a jogging jacket with a picture of a turnip embroidered on it when …

(Opens today June 22 at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, and the Embarcadero Center Cinemas in San Francisco, among other theaters. Tickets and showtimes here: )
By Richard …

By Richard von Busack
Scotland, sometime in the second half of the first eon: in Brave, the clans are uneasily united under mountainous King Fergus (voiced by Billy Connolly). Bears are still a threat. Much celebrated …

(Aubrey Plaza in Safety Not Guaranteed. Tickets and showtimes here
by Richard von Busack
The endearingly odd Safety Not Guaranteed (a perfect title for a romance) concerns a put-upon intern named Darius (Aubrey Plaza) at …

by Richard von Busack
(Elena tickets and showtimes here.)
The important Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s third film, Elena, is a kind of thriller—at least the urgent, cello-driven Philip Glass score mutters about violent tensions beneath the smooth …

by Richard von Busack
Rock of Ages (tickets and showtimes here) is based on the bridgiest-and-tunnelliest of Broadway musicals—like Mamma Mia!, Rock of Ages is for a crowd that knows the music is cheese but doesn’t …

by Richard von Busack
There’s one unposed moment in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. (Moonrise Kingdom tickets and showtimes here.) Frances McDormand plays Laura, a raging mother—she shouts at her children through a bullhorn most of the …