In Werner Herzog’s feature-length debut Signs of Life, injured German paratrooper Stroszek (Peter Brogle) – no relation to the lost-in-America protagonist of the filmmaker’s 1977 tour de force – finds himself stationed with his wife and two fellow soldiers on the Greek isle of Kos, where he’s tasked with protecting a fortress’ cache of ammunition…

Phil Morrison’s Junebug so thoroughly immerses itself in down-home Southern culture (or must I now refer to it as Blue State culture?) that it manages to delicately avoid Hollywood’s typical condescending caricatures of those who dwell below the Mason-Dixon line. Chicago art gallery owner Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) travels to North Carolina to woo a half-crazed…

The epitome of Miramax’s early ‘90s foreign imports, Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine combines lush period detail, thriving melodrama, and a hint of the risqué (i.e. gayness!) to form something simultaneously sweeping, self-important and only moderately stirring. Winner of the Palm d’Or at Cannes, Kaige’s debut is a decades-spanning affair charting the relationship between two…

As with 2003’s remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alejandre Aja’s update of Wes Craven’s 1977 The Hills Have Eyes exhibits more technical proficiency, and piles on significantly more gore, than its illustrious predecessor. Yet in both cases, what’s fundamentally missing is the anarchic, irrational unpredictability that made the originals so terrifying. Coated in dust…

Ryan Reynolds may don a fat suit for Just Friends’ countless ‘90s flashbacks, but director Roger Kumble’s romantic comedy – despite its star’s prosthetic poundage – is painfully light on laughs. After having spent his high school years as an overweight nerd hopelessly in love with sexy best friend Jamie (dull-as-always Amy Smart), Chris (Reynolds)…

A dim-witted companion piece to Kate Hudson’s voodoo-rific Bayou spookfest The Skeleton Key, Venom piles on the Creole witch doctors, bloody enchantments and rituals, and frazzled white folk without ever straying from the mainstream slasher genre’s long-decayed bylaws. Thus, the first to die at the hands of reincarnated mechanic Ray (Rick Cramer) – who, the…

Someone stop Tony Scott. Please. With Domino, the Top Gun auteur takes his in-your-face stylistic mannerisms to new lows, twitchily breaking up every shot with five unnecessary cuts, randomly flip-flopping between different film stocks, mixing distorted voiceover with thumping techno noise, and generally calling attention to his own behind-the-scenes presence whenever possible. Which is always.…

From its conception of the Grim Reaper as an ominous cold breeze that slays kids with elaborate Rube Goldberg traps to its profusion of turgid teen horror stereotypes, Glen Morgan and James Wong’s Final Destination series has always been a lethally leaden joke. Having handed the second installment’s reigns to David R. Ellis – who…

Chen Kaige goes soft and mushy with Together, an aggressively heartwarming tale about a teenage violin prodigy named Xiaochun (Tang Yun) and the peasant father Liu Cheng (Liu Peiqi) who relocates the boy to Taiwain in order to further his musical career. Determined to have his son attain fame and fortune, Liu persistently hounds slovenly…