'The War with Grandpa': Film Review

Thriller author Gillian Flynn didn't invent the "cool girl," but she did codify her.

Whether you call it classic or generic, the coming-of-age story of Sparkle, the fittingly named 17-year-old at the center of She Paradise, follows a familiar trajectory. She's a teen with drive, talent and an independent streak, defying parental disapproval and breaking away from childhood.

A holiday plan for two lifelong friends to drown their sorrows in pie turns into something much more sociable in Friendsgiving, the writing-directing debut of comic actress Nicole Paone. Jam-packed with familiar names, it is most interested in those besties (played by Malin Akerman and Kat Dennings), whose exasperated complaints about failed relationships don't deliver the laughs they seem intended to.

Set against the majestic backdrop of Ireland's wild west coast, Pixie is a trigger-happy comedy road movie that relies more on boorish energy than wit or charm. It marks the self-produced solo directing debut of veteran British producer Barnaby Thompson, whose long lost of credits includes the Wayne's World movies, working here from a screenplay by his son Preston.

A middle-class couple who can’t have children turns to an adoption agency for a baby, only to find their happiness threatened years later when their son’s biological mother shows up and demands him back. Though the story is based on a novel by mystery writer Mizuki Tsujimura, True Mothers (Asa ga Kuru) is a true Naomi Kawase film: a lush visual reworking of parental angst and despair, offset by frequent interludes of communing with that great healer, Mother Nature.

The macabre humor of Roald Dahl survived even a sweetened ending that irked the famed British children’s author in Nicolas Roeg's delectable 1990 film of The Witches, thanks in large part to the glorious villainy of Anjelica Huston.

Documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi says that the purpose of her latest film was to "take the temperature of how people feel about America today." Judging by the alarming footage on display in American Selfie: One Nation Shoots Itself —premiering Friday on Showtime — the country is suffering from a high-grade fever.

In The Boy Behind the Door, a gripping twist on the home-invasion thriller, first-time feature directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell plunge two tween boys into escalating peril, relentlessly intensifying a cascading series of lethal threats over the film’s excruciating runtime.

You can feel the urgency fueling Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler's historical drama about a little-known, shameful episode in our country's past. Despite taking place in the 1920s, Radium Girls feels particularly relevant in these times when the current administration has devoted itself with a passion to rolling back protections for workers.

Mental health institutions are not filled with emotionally disturbed individuals, but rather brave iconoclasts unwilling to conform to societal rules. That, at least, is an idea that's been posited in popular culture for what seems like forever, most prominently advanced in the book, stage and screen versions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some films take on more relevance than anyone could have planned. (Contagion is just the start.) The Road Up, a worthwhile new documentary about a Chicago jobs-training program, has the bad luck to be the opposite kind.

Todd McCarthy Two of the most engaging and beguiling talkers—and, oh yes, two of the better writers—of the last century share the spotlight in Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation.

Also Read: Henry Winkler Joins Jessica Barden in Drama 'Pink Skies Ahead'When Winona feels a lump in her armpit, she goes to see her physician, Dr. Cotton (Henry Winkler) — or, rather, her pediatrician, whom she insists on seeing over his objections, given that she’s now 20.

Dino-Ray Ramos editorThe specialty box office was fairly quiet this weekend with The Kid Detective being the new theatrical release posting numbers.

Tim Hill's family friendly comedy The War With Grandpa topped the U.S. box office with $3.6 million, enough to topple Christopher Nolan's Tenet from the top spot.

Also Read: Pixar's 'Soul' to Skip US Theaters for Christmas Day Disney+ DebutJoe Gardener (voiced by Jamie Foxx) is a middle school band teacher in Queens, New York.

Every few years, Robert De Niro likes to mix it up. He’ll throw in “Last Vegas” or “The Intern” to remind us all he’s more than Travis Bickle or Jake LaMotta.

After five weekends atop a pandemic-drained box office, “Tenet” has ceded the No. 1 spot to 101 Studios’ “The War With Grandpa,” an indie family film starring Robert De Niro that is serving as a trial balloon of sorts for the genre.Released on 2,250 screens, “The War With Grandpa” took in a $3.6 million opening weekend for a per theater average of $1,604.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“The War With Grandpa,” a Robert De Niro comedy about the battle between a wily septuagenarian and his grandson over a bedroom, was originally supposed to hit theaters in 2018.Plans changed after Harvey Weinstein, the indie film producer whose company The Weinstein Company financed the “Home Alone” knockoff, was exposed as a serial sexual harasser and predator.

Jane Seymour has nothing but nice things to say about her experience with fellow veteran actors Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken on The War With Grandpa.“I was very pleasantly overwhelmed,” the actress, 69, reveals exclusively in the new issue of Us Weekly. “Mr.