Screen
Crazy Cruise
With Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, director Brad Bird makes his live-action feature debut, having made a name for himself and a few hundred million for Disney/Pixar with The Incredibles and one of the freshest comedies of the last few years, Ratatouille. It’s ...
MacGyver in space
Time to wax nostalgic: Once upon a time, many congressional sessions ago, America dreamed of space. Instead of aircraft-carrier saber rattling, international tension was ratcheted in a contest to see who could invent more, reach further. The country was gripped with ...
reel to reel | Week of Sept. 8, 2011
30 Minutes Or Less A pizza-delivery guy (Jesse Eisenberg) is kidnapped by dim-witted criminals and forced to help them rob a bank. Rated R. At Flatiron and Century. — Rene Rodriguez Antwerp Central Station Between past and present, between dream and reality, a ...
Close to something
In one of the most insightful, clever comments in a movie surprisingly devoid of insightful, clever comments, backup singer Janice Pendarvis notes, “When you think about the history of pop music and all the memorable hooks that most people sing along with, they’re ...
Leave it alone
Let’s not do this, OK? Let’s not use nostalgia to forgive the unspeakable things we did to fringe, denim and the musical scale in the 1980s. Other than the 1985 Chicago Bears and that time Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire, there is nothing even worth remembering...
Rose-tinted world
At the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, house-servantturned-space-commander Riff Raff threatens the sequinned-and-fishnetted Dr. Frank-N-Furter with a laser trident and yells, “Say goodbye to all of this, and hello to oblivion...
Women, poorly portrayed
Thwarted by the same awkward timing that zonked Confessions of a Shopaholic two years ago, just when shopaholics began to seem extra-heinous, the film version of I Don’t Know How She Does It doesn’t know how to do what I think it’s trying to do...
Reel to reel | Week of July 25, 2013
20 Feet From Stardom Director Morgan Neville shines a spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. At Mayan. — Landmark Theatres American Graffiti A group of friends about to head to ...
A thriller minus the thrills
When Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciaran Hinds and this year’s breakout actress, Jessica Chastain of The Tree of Life and The Help, can’t make much out of a political thriller, you know something’s off with both the political and the thriller components...
