Screen
Harmless murderers
Because the world needs the palpable sexuality of John Malkovich and Helen Mirren on screen together, here comes Red 2. You’d never know from the inspired title, but it’s actually a sequel to the film Red, which was something of a sleeper hit, and not just because it...
‘Remember’ digs up a history of violence
William Faulkner wisely wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” No matter how hard we try to suppress and forget, the...
All’s well that ends well
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a rare gift. Long-running film franchises generally either fade away or leave fans hanging. Director David Yates takes advantage of the opportunity to close the book on this series by creating a film finale that ...
Circular logic
Writer/director Rian Johnson is fantastic at making pretty good movies. 2005’s Brick was a slyly conceived yarn that took 1940s private dick dialogue and plot and affixed them to a modern high-school setting, with middling effect. 2008’s The Brothers Bloom was a ...
Best picture(s)
Once
you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to
so many more amazing films. —Bong Joon-ho’s Golden Globe acceptance
speech.
On May 25, 2019,...
The eternal appeal of The Great Stone Face
Still wonderful, isn’t it? And no dialogue. We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces. There just aren’t any faces like that anymore. —Norma Desmond,...
Guilty of misdirection
Conviction should have been a good film. After a woman’s beloved ne’erdo-well brother is convicted of murder in a tiny hick town, it’s up to her to exonerate him, first through the system and then by going to law school and becoming a one-client attorney. Better yet...
Partly sunny
To steal from Mother Goose (don’t worry, she’s dead): When Cloud Atlas is good, it’s very, very good; when it’s bad, Hugo Weaving is doing a drag impression of Nurse Ratched. The ambition of writers/directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Twyker, working from David...
Night at the zoo
We want the same thing from our comedians that we expect of great ballplayers — that they “leave it all on the field.” And Kevin James does that. From his various team-ups with Adam Sandler to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, James hurls himself at the physical shtick and ...
A fun, fierce and frivolous political act
Tuesday, Oct. 13 marks the halfway point for TCM’s Women Make Film series — easily the cinematic highlight of 2020 — and the premiere...
All the president’s meh
Although he may still be a panty dropper to the baby boomer set, Robert Redford looks like he needs a good nap. The bags under his eyes are scene-stealing, uncredited supporting actors in The Company You Keep, a ’70s-style thriller about investigative journalism that...


















