Michelle Pfeiffer can do almost no wrong on screen, in my view, and I’m going to declare that it’s not her fault that the new film “French Exit” suffers from overambition and a trace of boredom despite her still-electrifying presence. Not that she doesn’t lean into the role of Frances Price with considerable verve. A lifelong New York socialite, Frances is devastated to learn that her late ... more >
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“French exit” (because why not?) | REVIEW
Film is based on the book by Patrick DeWitt
Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges and Tracy Letts
Directed by Azazel Jacobs
ANNETTE BENING and Michelle Pfeiffer to star in Gideon Raff’s “Turn of Mind”
Some Cannes Festival-related announcements
Academy Award nominees Annette Bening (“The Kids Are All Right,” “American Beauty”) and Michelle Pfeiffer (“Murder on the Orient Express”) have signed on to star in director Gideon Raff’s (“Homeland”, “Tyrant”, “Dig”, and the upcoming “The Red Sea Diving Resort” and “The Spy” thriller “Turn of Mind.” Adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright (“I Am My Own Wife,” “Quills”) and based on Alice ... more >
DRAMA/MYSTERY: “Murder on the Orient Express
With a bit of British restraint
Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe and Judi Dench
By now, film adaptations based on the oeuvre of the two most prolific British writers of crime fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, form a respectable body. Of the latter, probably the best-known work remains “Murder on the Orient Express.” Today comes a new version by the, himself now almost venerable, Brit actor, Kenneth Branagh. From the get-go in this iteration, the ... more >
Dark Shadows
Back to the Future: the Goth Years
Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer
Directed by Tim Burton
Few television-to-movie adaptations actually end up working out. So, it’s with great disappointment that “Dark Shadows,” based off a seventies TV show, never really comes into the light despite best efforts by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, their collaborations now numbering eight. Depp's Barnabas Collins is a part of the thriving Collins company in the eighteenth century before an evil witch, ... more >
“People like us”
Putting the fam together piece by piece
Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pine and Michelle Pfeiffer
Directed by Alex Kurtzman
Have you heard of “People like Us”? It's by the same studio--Dreamworks--which had released “The Help.” "People" barely even meets that previous mediocre effort, however, and lacks the two name actresses who made "The Help" the film that it was. That "People" was written by the same scribes (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; they also directed this new film) who were behind the “Transformers” ... more >