Screen
Speaking of unholy abominations…
Two options: 1 — People legitimately loved The Witch after it screened at Sundance and have hyped it because of a passion I simply...
Lucy goosey
It doesn’t work this way with people, but there’s a level of confident stupidity a movie can display that makes it endearing. Lucy is that kind of stupid. Cocksure and confidently, it swaggers around, daring you to question any of the unimaginable number of ...
Meta-references are not always good
In the first few minutes of Scream 4, the teenage girls home by themselves on a dark night are watching a DVD and discussing the merits and demerits of the Saw franchise, which one of the girls refers to as “torture porn,” and then brrrrrrrrrrrrp brrrrrrrrrrrrp goes ...
Replicant? No, repli-can!
It is profoundly insightful and upsetting that both Blade Runners explicitly tackle the sins of civilizations built on slavery and sexual subjugation without including...
Mainline it
I’m not going to take any chances by coming at this in clever fashion: Go see Dope. See it now. See it and reward filmmakers speaking truth for passionately reminding us that unique and original voices are the soul of cinema. If Jurassic World is how the industry ...
Real guitar heroes in ‘It Might Get Loud’
What do Jack White from The White Stripes, The Edge from U2, and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin have in common, besides the obvious? Each represents a prominent part of a musical movement that thrives around one of the most significant instruments created in the past ...
The dreaded ’20’
It´s a close call, given the lousiness and the scolding tone of much of her material, but Anna Faris survives What’s Your Number? with eccentric comic charm intact. Dumb film; smart comedienne...
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...
Corporate fate
David Norris (Matt Damon) is a young go-getter New York politician who has a chance encounter with the quirky, engaging Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a ballerina who captures his attention immediately. Strange forces are at work and Norris is assaulted and wakes up in ...
Bizarre tale from the future
Real Steel, a tale of a boy and his metallic 8-foot man-pet, may well drill past its own tin-plated inanities and strike gold, or oil, or something. My kid wants to see it; therefore I think it’ll be a hit...
Merchandise in lieu of a movie
Cars 2 had every chance to improve upon the leisurely 2006 animated feature from Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Studios. Yet here we are, stuck with a merchandising assembly line in lieu of a movie. Despite its technical and design finesse, this ranks as ...
