Screen
Bad cops, bad script
Everything that does and does not work in Brooklyn’s Finest arrives in Scene One. A twitchy, cashstrapped detective played by Ethan Hawke is driving around with a shifty associate played by unbilled Vincent D’Onofrio. They park by a cemetery. (Warning.) Director ...
You don’t want to ‘Hear About the Morgans’
Pure, communal silence can be a wonderful thing, and if you haven’t experienced any lately, I recommend you see the first available screening of the new romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? Each of its theoretical punch lines is preceded by an eerie second...
Three young men seek identity in ‘Oriented’
As the American presidential race continues to heat up, more and more Americans divide themselves across party lines and political predilections. Yet, few see...
Home viewing: ‘Pierrot le Fou’
It’s the story of boy meets girl, but it’s all mixed up. He’s Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a married man with kids. She is Marianne...
‘Every leaf, every ray of light’
“Someday we’ll fall down and weep, and we’ll understand it all. All things.” —Mr. O’Brien, The Tree of Life
For two weeks every May, the...
Myopic biopic
Biopics are lies. Oh, don’t get me wrong, all storytelling is fundamentally fibbing. But it seems somehow more disingenuous to airbrush actual human histories, to select which warts to ignore and which redemptive moments to exaggerate. Documentaries exist for a ...
‘What year is this?’
If the whole of 2017 could be summed up in one cinematic moment, then that moment would not be found in the cinema but...
Black humorless
Low-brow. Just expect it from Gulliver’s Travels. When Gulliver ( Jack Black) first arrives at the kingdom of Lilliput and puts out a raging fire by dropping his shorts and urinating, I was astonished by the audience laughter. This is a film unabashedly aimed at teen...
When I paint my masterpiece
Consider the bus driver. Do you notice them as you board the Skip? Do you wonder what they see as the Dash rumbles down...
Many unhappy returns
The hackneyed, half-assed backstory for the lead character in Happy Death Day involves the tragic loss of her mother, which doesn’t actually feel sad...
Mama, have mercy
Horror films are often peppered with moments in which you wish your protagonists were just a little more bright or had planned things out a little better — “Don’t go into that basement” and “Don’t open that door.” Even the beloved Shining leaves moments of, “Damn it...
