The Best and the Brightest: Film Review

The Bottom Line Absurd premise and weak script doom this comedy about haute-preschool angst. Director Josh Shelov Screenwriter Josh Shelov, Michael Jaeger Cast Neil Patrick Harris, Bonnie Somerville, Amy Sedaris Neil Patrick Harris, Bonnie Somerville and Amy

Leave it on the Floor: Film Review

The Bottom Line

Talented performers make a low-budget musical sing.
Venue

Los Angeles Film Festival
Cast

Ephraim Sykes, Miss Barbie-Q, Phillip Evelyn, Andre Myers, James Alsop, Cameron Koa, Metra Dee
Director

Sheldon Larry
The low-budget African-American musical by director Sheldon Larry illustrates the

Broken Tower: Film Review

The Bottom Line

James Franco’s arty piece about maverick poet Hart Crane may serve better as his thesis film than as a commercial release.

VENUE: Los Angeles Film Festival

Renée: Los Angeles Film Fest Review

The Bottom Line
An inconclusive yet nevertheless captivating look at the life of the world’s most famous transsexual athlete

Director:
Eric Drath

Screenwriters
Aaron Cohen, Eric Drath
Eric Drath’s documentary explores the life of transsexual tennis star Renée Richards before and after her 1975 gender reassignment surgery.

Renée, Eric Drath’s documentary about transsexual tennis star Renée Richards and her battle to play as a woman in the 1977 U.S. Open, is as fascinating as it is frustrating. Made for ESPN Films and shown in the current Los Angeles Film Fest prior to broadcast later this year, the film brings you up-to-date on a personality who once dominated headlines but has now largely faded from public view.

Cars 2: Film Review

The Bottom Line

Lightning and Mater mix it up with Formula 1 and spies in yet another Pixar winner.
Opens:

June 24 (Disney)
Voice cast:

Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer
Director:

John Lasseter
Co-director:

Brad Lewis
Screenwriter:

Bernie: Film Review

The Bottom Line

A splendid performance by Jack Black distinguishes this overly mild look at a 1990s Texas murder.

Venue:

Los Angeles Film Festival, Opening Night film

Cast:

Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey, Brady Coleman, Richard Robichaux,

Bad Teacher: Film Review

The Bottom Line
Passably funny vision of classroom apathy won’t win fans within teachers’ unions but isn’t as outrageous as it could have been.

Opens
Friday, June 24 (Columbia Pictures)

Cast
Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins, Jason Segel, Phyllis Smith

Mr. Popper’s Penguins: Film Review

The Bottom Line
Jim Carrey and six penguins compete for laughs in a good-natured family comedy.
Director
Mark Waters
Screenwriter
Sean Anders, John Morris, Jared Stern

Green Lantern: Film Review

The Bottom Line

Muscular, well-cast launch of a proposed new franchise can’t help but replay a lot of familiar notes.
Opens

Friday, June 17 (Warner Bros.)
Cast

Territories: Film Review

The Bottom Line

Deliverance meets Gitmo in this tense but patchy horror thriller
Director

Olivier Abbou
Screenwriters

Olivier Abbou, Thibault Lang Willar
Cast

Roc LaFortune, Sean Devine, Nicole Leroux, Michael Mando
Olivier Abbou directs this English-language, Franco-Canadian production where a group of Canadians who cross the border into the U.S. go through a series of “enhanced interrogations” straight out of Guantanamo 101.