Screen
Dull expectations
When an idiosyncratic talent seeks a wider audience for her work, there’s a danger in trading the offbeat for something more on-the-nose. This is what has happened in Friends With Kids, a smooth but frustrating third feature with an extremely good ensemble cast. In ...
8,500 miles in my shoes
There are roughly three New Yorks ... First, the New York of the man or woman who was born here ... Second, there is...
‘Sausage Party’ goes further than you think
The first 70-or-so minutes of Sausage Party is obscenely insightful, a hilariously raunchy contemplation of how spiritual beliefs can be ignorance-inducing and socially blinding....
Temporarily funny
I like Jay Baruchel. He’s the 21st-century Don Knotts, and even in a forgettable film like She’s Out of My League — its title alone secures it a place in film history alongside She’s All That and She’s Out of Control — Baruchel’s adenoidal, sidewinding line ...
Iron curtain hurtin’
With apologies to SNL’s Cecily Strong, during its first 40 minutes, Atomic Blonde is “the person you wish you hadn’t started a conversation with...
Reel to reel | Week of Feb. 13
About Last Night An updated version of the classic romantic comedy. This film follows two couples from pickup line to bedroom. Rated R. At Century. All Is Lost Robert Redford stars in All Is Lost, an open-water thriller about one man’s battle for survival against ...
John Hughes for kids
Released a year ago, the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie captured remarkably little of the sly charm of the Jeff Kinney books that line my son’s bookshelf. The film did, however, capture enough of the fan base to warrant a sequel. And here we are. And it’s a little ...
Myopic biopic
Biopics are lies. Oh, don’t get me wrong, all storytelling is fundamentally fibbing. But it seems somehow more disingenuous to airbrush actual human histories, to select which warts to ignore and which redemptive moments to exaggerate. Documentaries exist for a ...
Between the notes
Jessica first heard the bang in the early morning hours. It’s an unearthly sound, a loud thump she describes as a big concrete ball...
