NPR's Bob Mondello says J.J. Abrams' latest Star Trek film knows how to make the sparks and feelings fly, but doesn't bother making the sparks and feeling matter very much.
The 12th film based on Gene Roddenberry's '60s sci-fi TV show is the second to star a new group of actors as Kirk, Spock and their crew. J.J. Abrams returns as director, and Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch plays the memorable villain.
A director's film memoir of her theatrical family is transformed by surprising discoveries about her parents' past — and her own heritage. Sarah Polley's film becomes a superb meditation on how we dramatize memory. (Recommended)
Director and co-writer Shane Black kicks Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., out of his comfort zone — a choice that has Stark functioning as a lone gumshoe, thinking like a garage mechanic and, when necessary, straight-up MacGyvering a fix.
Wiseacre billionaire Tony Stark, uncharacteristically anxious since the events of 2012's The Avengers, must face down a domestic terrorist without backup from his buddies in the latest installment of the Marvel franchise.
In her classic '60s documentary, Shirley Clarke profiles a loquacious 33-year-old gay hustler who dreams of having a nightclub act. Her subject could hardly be more complex — and in examining him, she raises important questions about the relationship between fact and fiction.
Jeff Nichols and Ramin Bahrani made names with small, low-budget movies: Nichols with Take Shelter and Bahrani with Man Push Cart. Both have now directed big-budget films with big stars: Nichols' Mud features Matthew McConaughey, and Bahrani's At Any Price stars Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron.
Joseph Kosinski's sci-fi adventure, starring Tom Cruise, is the most incoherent piece of storytelling since John Travolta's Battlefield Earth. It had critic David Edelstein crying, "What? What?" over the din of the explosions.
It's been said that to properly understand a magician, you have to get right on stage and watch how the act is done. NPR's Bob Mondello had that chance once with card whiz Ricky Jay — subject of the new film Deceptive Practice — and has a few words about how the showman works.
A documentary airing tonight on PBS tells the story of the five young black and Latino men wrongly convicted of the 1989 assault and rape of a white female jogger in Manhattan's Central Park. Ken Burns made the film with his eldest daughter, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon.