Screen
Crisis of context
I believe it’s a lack of context, not empathy. Because if it’s a lack of empathy, we’re screwed — doomed as a country, culture, maybe even species. The dismissal of the poor as bottom-feeding, system-exploiting moochers comes from not having a full perspective of ...
A conspiracy full of holes
Heartbreakingly average, director Robert Redford’s The Conspirator errs in the way so many films do, especially films about unsung pieces of American history. It focuses on the wrong character — in this case the white male, i.e. the “bankable” one, instead of the ...
‘This isn’t a comic book’
Writer/director Jeff Wadlow’s Kick-Ass 2 is “morning radio shock jock” offensive, which is a thematic departure from the source material written by Mark Millar. But is it better to flinch from the vile, reprobate, misogynistic glee of Millar’s comic miniseries or to ...
Unnecessary 3-D
Comic effrontery is the Bic that lights the bong in the Harold & Kumar movies, but willfully strained outrageousness can turn sour like that. For a definition of “that,” there’s A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, the weakest of the three. Here, the boy-men — now ...
Bad title, good movie
Forty-five minutes or so into Tower Heist, the question arises: Is this movie with the title of purest generica — was “Stealing Money” taken? — truly good, or simply less bad than most of what director Brett Ratner has done previously...
Awful everything
The good news for Paul W.S. Anderson is that Uwe Boll, his only serious competition for worst movie-maker in the biz, has another BloodRayne movie on the way...
‘Horrible’ pretty good
You can practically hear little coils of contempt tightening inside Jason Bateman every time he’s in a pickle on screen. In the new comedy Horrible Bosses, the Bateman specialty is the are-you-trying-to-tell-me response. At one point in the film, when confronted ...
‘Arthur’ a tipsy remake
From one perspective, the well-lubricated yet stiff-jointed 1981 comedy Arthur, the one about the millionaire Manhattan drunkard played by Dudley Moore, was ripe for a remake. It scored a huge popular success early in the Reagan era, when unexamined wealth was king. ...
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...
Hocus poking
If you were to divide your ticket price by the number of semi-nude male pelvic thrusts in the faces of women spectators, each hump costs you less than a penny. At times during Magic Mike XXL, I felt like I needed a “horny translator.” That is to say, when Channing ...
