Screen

In general, I’m not a big fan of holding artists accountable to the standard set by their best work. Making something “good” after making something “great,” doesn’t mean that the good thing is any less objectively good or that the great thing is any more great. What ...

Modern Americans re-elected a man who plunged the country into two wars, tortured people and destroyed our economy, all because George W. Bush was the kind of guy you’d “like to have a beer with.” But for a brief moment in 1972, America rooted for the smart guy. To ...

Thrill-seekers live for the rush that comes from defying death; adrenaline is the body’s chemical “thank you” for keeping it alive. Somehow, that’s the sensation I got watching Dear White People, writer/ director Justin Simien’s declaration that he didn’t come to ...

At some point, Mission Impossible and the 007 series “freaky Fridayed.” Bond moved from implausible ridiculousness to slightly-more-grounded cloak-and-daggerism, whereas Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is now climbing into airplanes by holding on to a door handle while it ...

Actual human beings made The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and you can tell. A water-colored rebuke of the robots who computer-generate most modern animation, every luscious scene is hand-crafted and flippin’ gorgeous. Sadly, the story is painted with obvious and familiar...

The diner, as always, is a dive in the desert...

Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is a retelling of every story involving a beloved pet ever told, with the twist being the human is the pet. In an alternate reality where dinosaurs and man walked the earth together (that’s called creationism), Aldo (Raymond Ochoa), a runt ...

Midway through Ex Machina, writer/director Alex Garland’s taut thinker, super genius inventor Nathan (Oscar Isaac) tells human guinea pig Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) that the invention of artificial intelligence was always a matter of when, not if. Here’s a thought: ...

16 Love Sixteen-year-old Ally “Smash” Mash lives between the carefully painted white lines of Junior Tennis. Unbeaten and about to go pro, she has no time for lazy newcomer Farrell Gambles. But when fate and a twisted ankle intervene, she teaches Farrell what 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 ...

No Escape feels like it was written by somebody who violently hates the entire Asian continent. Culled from every xenophobic stereotype, down to the eating of dogs, the film plays like a two-hour anti-tourism ad: “Malaysia, You’ll Probably Die Here.” Setting aside ...

THE AFRICAN QUEEN...