Screen

A certain segment of the population has always believed Nixon’s War on Drugs to be a tragic waste of time, money and human life. A damning statistic, familiar to those with even a minor interest in the drug boondoggle, comes early in The House I Live In: “Since 1971...

The “99 percent vs. the 1 percent” analogy at work in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has all the subtlety of a funeral selfie. But it is precisely this lack of sophistication in message that may make this the most zeitgeist-capturing, intellectually resonant sci-fi ...

A horror movie that works cuts through analysis, shrugs off opinions and snobbery, and eschews complexity — either in technique or in budget. You know it works when the hairs on the back of your neck rise. You know it works when others in the audience — as if moved ...

A rich and surprisingly old-fashioned musical biopic, The Runaways has neither the bloat nor the blather of your average Hollywood treatment of stars on the rise. It’s pungent and quick on its feet, capturing the clubs, the shag-heavy interiors and the Farrahhaired...

21 JUMP STREET Two young police officers and ex-classmates go undercover at a local high school to investigate a dangerous drug ring. Rated R. At Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Los Angeles Times/ MCT AMERICAN REUNION A decade after their teen adventures ...

Although traditionally necessary for filmmaking, the original Iron Man was rumored not to have had much of a real script, just an outline of key moments and the note “fill in gaps with Robert Downey Jr.’s swag.” Much to the chagrin of the Writers Guild of America, it...

There’s funny and then there’s funny, and A Good Old- Fashioned Orgy is neither. I suspect Contagion will be funnier...

Oh my God, they’ve shot Dame Helen Mirren! Realizing the Oscar-winning actress is playing a part, and not herself, the thought nonetheless is inescapable when Mirren’s ex-CIA agent takes a bullet in RED. I mean: How dare they...

The brilliantly untrustworthy documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop reminds us that a film can start out in one direction and then change course so radically, it becomes an act of provocation unto itself. It’s billed as the first feature by the shadowy British ...

Fast, cheap and out of control, and set in glamorous Grand Rapids, Mich., director Ruben Fleischer’s 30 Minutes or Less doesn’t even crack the 80-minute mark if you exclude the end credits. The same was true of Fleischer’s feature film debut, the very funny ...

Two minutes in: You can do this, Ryan. Sure, a three-hour film version of a Broadway musical is a dry way to waterboard you, but people say Les Misérables is the best adaptation yet. Maybe this is the one that finally changes your mind...

The new True Grit restores all the grit removed in the first version (the 1969 Henry Hathaway film starring John Wayne) of the 1968 Charles Portis novel. All of Portis’ sardonic wit has been retained this time, and then some. The “then some” derives from this project...