Technically, Charlie St. Cloud is about a promising young man (Zac Efron), about to leave for Stanford on a sailing scholarship, who is driving his kid brother one night when they are struck by a truck. Charlie flatlines, but is revived by a medic (Ray Liotta). Eleven-year-old Sam (Charlie Tahan) doesn’t make it.

But in reality, Charlie St. Cloud is about Zac Efron’s face. Sometimes his abs, too, but mostly his face. Director Burr Steers shoots him in beautiful, golden light, always in closeup, often for several exquisite moments at a time.

Zac Efron face porn aside, Charlie St. Cloud plays like a particuarly mystical installment of the Nicholas Sparks canon. Five years after Sam’s death, Charlie has deferred the scholarship and is now the caretaker at the graveyard where his brother is buried. He also has kept a promise to play catch with Sam every day at sundown. Oh yeah, and he also sometimes has conversations with a good buddy . . . who died in the Iraq War.

I suppose you...

The miracle of Lisa Cholodenko’s funny, wise, and warm The Kids Are All Right is not that it successfully showcases a lesbian family, but that it successfully showcases a family, period.

The first time we see Jules (Julianne Moore), she’s at the table with her teenage children Laser (Josh Hutchinson) and Joni (Mia Wasikowksa), dishing salad from a wooden bowl onto their plates. When Jules’s doctor wife Nic (Annette Bening) comes home, first offering a weak apology for being late and then subtly suggesting that Jules has put out the wrong wine, we believe—and this is crucial—that she and Jules are really married, that these are really their children, and that we have simply dropped in on a typical family dinner.

It’s in these first few scenes that Cholodenko deftly establishes much of the film’s dynamic: That Jules is starting a new landscaping business, although Nic dismissively calls it “that gardening thing.” That Nic is a control freak who is somewhat disapproving of her wife’s hippie-ish...

I didn’t get around to watching Comedy Central’s roast of Joan Rivers, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Turns out, Rivers sat in her limo before the show began, absolutely dreading it.

She knew it was going to be a litany of cruel jokes about her age and her plastic surgery abuse—and she wanted no part of it. She took the gig for the money, plain and simple. So she put on her game face as a lineup of (mostly male) comedians barraged her with mean-spirited put-downs about her appearance. (Brad Garrett screamed at the sight of her.)

There are many such cringe-inducing  moments in the fabulous new documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work—and also moments that will make you cry, cheer, and, most of all, laugh. You will leave this film remembering that Joan Rivers is one very funny woman (albeit a vulgar one). You will also see her as a woman of great strength, a true show biz survivor.

At 75 years of age, Rivers is all-too aware of her status in the show-biz arena: A has-been and...

I didn’t expect Grown Ups to be good, but I at least expected to give it one of those “it looks like they’re having more fun on screen than we are in the audience” type reviews.

That’s usually what happens when a big star like Adam Sandler rounds up his pals—in this case, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Kevin James—to make a movie: The film is beset with inside jokes and a kind of giddy camaraderie that doesn’t quite translate into a satisfying viewing experience.

But that is not what happens here. Because everyone involved with Grown Ups seems miserable. Beyond miserable—filled with a kind of unspeakable, existential dread. Kevin James, in particular, looks like Admiral James Stockdale: “Who am I? How did I get here?” (There are also a few women, real actresses no less—Salma Hayak, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello—who got roped into this fiasco. They will be no doubt be wiping this film from their resumes.)

The premise is this: Five guys, who played on a...