Who among us wouldn't go on a 90-minute killing spree if someone murdered our adorable beagle pup? Anyone not on board? Okay, what if the beagle pup was a posthumous gift from your beloved wife, your one opportunity to "grieve unalone" for the woman who rescued you from your life …
What a great opening! An olde-timey movie, projected onto an urban facade, showing an automotive crash. Pan down to a motorcycle, sliding on its side along the rain-slicked street — the crash has actually happened; the movie is reality. The bike’s owner scrambles into view, picks it up, takes off, …
By this point, director Chad Stahelski’s franchise about Keanu Reeves’ hitman with a heart of gold (Wick’s reasons for killing the hundreds of assassins after his head this time ‘round are entirely romantic) is completely besotted with itself and the world it’s created. Its hefty borrowing from Catholic bureaucracy: disgraced …
By this point, director Chad Stahelski’s franchise about Keanu Reeves’ hitman with a heart of gold (Wick’s reasons for killing the hundreds of assassins after his head this time ‘round are entirely romantic) is completely besotted with itself and the world it’s created. Its hefty borrowing from Catholic bureaucracy: disgraced …
There’s a deep and sincere sweetness in the work of writer-director Taika Waititi. It’s a kind of relentless and innocent good cheer that persists in the face of horror — to the point where the horror is obscured, or maybe defanged. That sweetness is in full effect in this story …
If there is a meaningful difference between performing and acting, Joaquin Phoenix surely exemplifies the former here, creepily contorting as the Clown Prince of Crime in Todd Phillips’ timely, toxic take on the Making of a Murdering Madman. (Timely because it seeks to tap into festering resentment on the part …
If there is a meaningful difference between performing and acting, Joaquin Phoenix surely exemplifies the former here, creepily contorting as the Clown Prince of Crime in Todd Phillips’ timely, toxic take on the Making of a Murdering Madman. (Timely because it seeks to tap into festering resentment on the part …
Writer-director David O. Russell serves notice that there have always been multi-generational stories of strong women who figure out how to make their way in a so-called man’s world — on television soap operas. He even helpfully opens this (based-on-a-true) story of one woman’s (Jennifer Lawrence) struggle to become the …
How can something so busy be so boring? Maybe it's because the Wachowskis have officially begun cannibalizing their own work. Way back in 1999, The Matrix gave us a Chosen One who gets introduced to a reality entirely beyond his experience, a reality based on a terrifying premise: humanity reduced …
Director Colin Trevorrow dumps out his Steven Spielberg Family Thriller Kit and makes sure all the pieces are there: squabbling siblings (young and old!), divorce, kids in peril, endearing childlike wonder vs. the threat posed by self-serving grownups, moral musings on science and nature, and oh yes, dinosaurs. Lots and …
Golly, maybe life really will find a way, even in a franchise whose last installment played like a zombified version of the original entry from Steven Spielberg. Director J.A. Bayona’s most recent feature was titled A Monster Calls, and featured a child dealing with painful news about his mother. Bayona …
Did you like Joss Whedon’s The Avengers? Then you’ll love, or at least maybe be able to mostly tolerate, Justice League, and not just because Whedon helped out with the script and direction. (Don’t worry, though: Zack Snyder still leaves his gritty, operatic fingerprints on the project, especially early on.) …
Who woulda thunk that The Covenant would get its own doppelganger a la Deep Impact and Armageddon? But here we are: an undercover CIA operative gets stuck in hostile territory in Afghanistan after his mission is exposed. Accompanied by his translator, he must fight enemy combatants as he tries to …