Screen
Philomena, evil nuns and AIDS
Nothing sets the box office ablaze quite like the quiet emotional journey of an 80-year-old Irish woman and a disgraced, pompous British journalist exploring murky ancestry across two continents...
Too cool to be forgotten
When Girlfriends opened in New York City on Aug. 11, 1978, a newspaper strike kept the movie’s release from a public announcement. So, director...
‘The Revenant’ punishes DiCaprio for Academy love
Without spoiling whether survivalist/tempting-bear-treat Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) survives The Revenant, we can still talk about one climactic shot. DiCaprio, having been maimed in...
‘Serious Man’ a new Coen classic
A Serious Man is a tart, brilliantly acted fable of life's little cosmic difficulties, a Coen brothers comedy with a darker philosophical outlook than No Country for Old Men but with a script rich in verbal wit. This time it's God or chance, or fate with a grudge ...
The M stands for middling
For the first time in over a decade, director M. Night Shyamalan has made a film that won’t end up on many “worst of the year” lists come late-December… but will probably be forgotten by early next week. The Visit is a horror film presented in the cheap, “found ...
Metal Lurching
To walk in to The Man with the Iron Fists by choice is to give up your right to bitch about story and character. This is a movie written and directed by The RZA, a member of the powerhouse rap group The Wu-Tang Clan; produced by Eli Roth, the guy who made Hostel; and...
That ship cray: ‘Noah’ ain’t bible school, y’all
They gave the guy who made Requiem for a Dream $150 million to make a movie about Noah’s ark. Huh?! In Requiem, writer/director Darren Aronofsky had Jennifer Connelly connect with another woman via an unforgettable shared “experience.” So, if any exec at Paramount ...
Singing on the ice
I admired much of the original Happy Feet (2006), but five years later, I’m still considering suing its makers for emotional distress...
