Stefania LaVie Owen

Katie Holmes seen alone and with Stefania Owen at a screening of 'All We Had' held at the Copia Screening Room during the Napa Valley Film Festival, Napa, California, United States - Saturday 12th November 2016

Krampus Review

Good

Based on ancient mythology, this Christmas horror movie has a gleefully nasty attitude that makes it entertaining even if it isn't properly frightening. This is mainly because the marauding monsters remain sketchy at best, never developing anything more than a superficial sense of dread. But the ace cast is terrific at engaging the audience,and the filmmakers keep viewers gripped as they play merrily with cliches from both horror and holiday movies.

It opens on a recognisably stressed-out Christmas season, as Tom and Sarah (Adam Scott and Toni Collette) feel their relationship straining under the pressure of work and holiday plans. They and their teen kids Beth and Max (Stefania LaVie Owen and Emjay Anthony) are dreading the arrival of their Aunt Linda and Uncle Howard (Allison Tolman and David Koechner) and their boorish kids. Then the drunken Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell) turns up unannounced. Tom's German mother (Krista Stadler) watches all of this with a silent, knowing dread. But the real threat is outside the house, as a vicious ice storm settles in, knocking out the power and unleashing a ferocious Anti-Santa and his evil gang of elves and killer toys.

The film is strikingly well shot and edited, as director Michael Dougherty orchestrates the comedy, drama and action to focus on the gifted actors. While the design and in-camera effects are clever, much of the digital effects work is ropey, giving the movie a cartoonish sheen. And the monsters themselves are eerily expressionless: ghoulish puppets with immobile faces. So they're extremely creepy, but not particularly menacing, because they have no personalities at all. Thankfully, Scott, Collette, Koechner and Tolman are experts at sliding effortlessly between comedy, drama and terror. And young Anthony gives the film a blast of resonance as Max, a boy still young enough to believe in Santa who thinks he has brought all of this violence down on his family.

Continue reading: Krampus Review

Krampus Trailer

For a lot of kids, the Christmas holidays is their favourite time of year, all the family is together, Christmas day usually brings gifts from Santa and the thought of time off school all amount to smiles in most homes. Max's family is one of those who've got together for the holidays and you'd think that he'd be a happy boy, but when he has a change of heart about the Christmas period, he accidentally evokes the wrath of an ancient force who punishes ungrateful people over the Christmas period - the complete opposite to that of the children loving, gift giving, Saint Nicholas.

Max and his family must team together to find a way to survive the Christmas period without Krampus and his little helpers destroying their entire family.

You better watch out, You better not cry, You better not pout, I'm telling you why: Krampus is coming to town.

Katie Holmes , Stefania Owen - Katie Holmes wearing a zipped front denim dress shopping at Walmart in Queens for a scene in her upcoming drama 'All We Had' which she also makes her feature directorial debut. at Queens - NY, United States - Tuesday 11th August 2015

Video - Director Jon Turteltaub Hits The Red Carpet At 'Last Vegas' NY Premiere - Part 1

Much of the supporting cast of coming-of-old-age comedy flick 'Last Vegas' are spotted on the red carpet at the comedy's New York premiere. Among them were the movie's director Jon Turteltaub, Romany Malco, Roger Bart and Jerry Ferrara.

Continue: Video - Director Jon Turteltaub Hits The Red Carpet At 'Last Vegas' NY Premiere - Part 1

The Lovely Bones Review

By Rich Cline

OK

This film is packed with involving performances, even though Jackson takes a bloated approach to what should be a quietly emotional drama. And in the end, the production design is so lush that it swamps the story's themes.

In 1973, Susie (Ronan) is a happy 14-year-old just beginning to blossom. Her crush on a fellow student (Ritchie) is about to culminate in her first kiss, but she's instead brutally murdered by a creepy neighbour (Tucci). Her parents (Wahlberg and Weisz) are distraught, and Grandma (Sarandon) needs to come help care for Susie's younger siblings (McIver and Christian Thomas Ashdale). Susie watches all of this from "my heaven", longing for her parents to recover their balance and aching for some form of revenge.

The central theme is that Susie's yearning for vengeance is preventing her parents from moving on, and it's also keeping her from resting in peace. As the months and years pass, she struggles to let go of her connections to her family and also to dislodge her killer's hold on her. This intriguing idea is more suited to a small-budget filmmaker forced to find subtle, creative ways to depict the interaction between the afterlife and the living world.

Jackson, of course, has no budgetary constraints, and indulges in constant eye-catching effects that are drenched in colour and symbolism. This luxuriant approach seems odd for a story this fatalistic; it's not likely to be a commercial hit no matter how glorious the digital artistry is. While some viewers will connect with the raw emotional tone, concepts of the cruelty of fate and the fragility of life are lost.

Even so, Ronan delivers another knock-out performance packed with nuance and meaning even though many of her scenes only require reaction shots. It's in her eyes that the film comes truly to life, as it were. The other standouts are Sarandon, who brazenly steals scenes in what's essentially a thankless role, and Tucci, who never resorts to stereotype in his portrayal of a sinister loner. Jackson, on the other hand, continually applies cliches around him, from shadowy angles that generate palpable suspense to a ludicrously over-the-top coda that erases any subtlety the film might have.