FilmWeek: KPCC film critics Claudia Puig and Wade Major join guest host David Lazarus to review the week’s new film releases including The Lincoln Lawyer, Paul, Limitless, Win Win, Cracks and more. TGI-FilmWeek!
Guests:
Claudia Puig, film critic for KPCC and USA Today
Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and boxoffice.com
FILMS REVIEWED
The Lincoln Lawyer
A Beverly Hills lawyer who conducts business out of his Lincoln Town Car takes on a treacherous case.
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, John Leguizamo and Michael Pena
Written by: John Romano
Based on the novel by Michael Connelly
Directed by: Brad Furman
Rated: R
Lionsgate
Paul
Two nerds on a road trip happen upon a smarmy fugitive alien and attempt to return him to his spaceship.
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig and the voice of Seth Rogen
Written by: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
Directed by: Gregg Mottola
Rated: R
Universal Pictures
Limitless
A man discovers a secret drug that gives him wildly superior brain power but also has dangerous implications.
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro and Anna Friel
Written by: Leslie Dixon
Directed by: Neil Burger
Rated: PG-13
Relativity Media
Win Win
While moonlighting as a high school wrestling coach, a struggling attorney discovers a star athlete with a difficult family.
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor
Written and directed by: Tom McCarthy
Rated: R
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Cracks
A new girl at an elite all-girls boarding school upsets the existing social order among her fellow students.
Starring: Eva Green, Juno Temple, Maria Valverde, and Imogen Poots
Written and directed by: Jordan Scott
Based on the novel by Sheila Kohler
Rated: Not rated
IFC Films
Monogamy
An engaged wedding photographer develops an unhealthy obsession with one of his clients.
Starring: Chris Messina, Rashida Jones and Meital Dohan
Written by: Dana Adam Shapiro and Evan Wiener
Directed by: Dana Adam Shapiro
Not rated
Oscilloscope Pictures
The Music Never Stopped
A father tries to find common ground through the music of the 1960s after his estranged son suffers from a brain tumor.
Starring: J.K. Simmons, Lou Taylor Pucci, Cara Seymour and Julia Ormond
Written by: Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks
Directed by: Jim Kohlberg
Rated: PG
Roadside Attractions
Winter in Wartime
A young teenager learns about the realities of war when he helps a wounded British paratrooper in Nazi-occupied Holland near the end of WWII.
Starring: Martijn Lakemeier, Yorick van Wageningen, Jamie Campbell Bower and Raymond Thiry
Written by: Mieke de Jong, Martin Koolhoven and Paul Jan Nelissen
Based on the novel by Jan Terlouw
Directed by: Martin Koolhoven
Rated: R
Sony Pictures Classics
Desert Flower
The autobiography of an American supermodel who overcame a violent upbringing in Somalia and became a human-rights activist.
Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Craig Parkinson and Juliet Stevensen
Written and directed by: Sherry Hormann
Rated: R
National Geographic Entertainment
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
The story of the 1905 strike and riot aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin.
Starring: Aleksandr Antonov, Grigori Aleksandrov and Ivan Bobrov
Written by: Nina Agadzhanova
Directed by: Sergei Eisenstein
Not Rated
Unknown distributor
The Desert of Forbidden Art
The story of Russian painter and art collector Igor Savitsky’s underground museum comprised of avant-garde art in the desert of Uzbekistan forbidden by the Soviet regime.
Starring the voices of: Ben Kingsley, Sally Field and Ed Asner
Written and directed by: Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev
Not rated
Unknown distributor
DVDs
Hereafter
Starring: Matt Damon, Cécile De France and Bryce Dallas Howard
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
The Fighter
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Amy Adams
Directed by: David O. Russell
The Switch
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Patrick Wilson
Directed by: Josh Gordon, Will Speck