Much will be made, no doubt, over the fact that DC has finally taken some pains to escape its reputation for dark ‘n gritty superhero movies and put the “comic” back in “comic book movie” with this, the story of a teenage boy who, when he says the titular name, …
Intermittently interesting and occasionally compelling history of the feminist movement's early days. The principal effort is to assemble as many squares of the "magic quilt" — to borrow a term from one of the film's subjects — as possible: the economic activists, the sexual activists, the class activists, the race …
The blind may not be so hot at leading the blind, but the damaged may be in a unique position to repair the damaged in writer-director Destin Cretton's feature-length adaptation of his Sundance short. This version tells the story of Grace, a young woman (Brie Larson) working in a short-term …
The film takes its title from a series of audio recordings that became an underground phenomenon in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The recordings take their title from one of the more frequent bits of invective hurled between the men being recorded: a pair of aging, miserable, and supremely …
Usually, director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) knows how to stick the landing. Any nagging dissatisfactions are dispatched with elegance and aplomb by his directorial denoument. Not so, Sicario, his exploration of the brutal violence and moral complication surrounding the war on drugs. Critics looking to get a pull-quote on the poster …
As if in imitation of the ruthless Mexican drug cartel its heroes go after, director Stefano Sollima’s sequel decapitates, disembowels, and castrates Denis Villeneuve’s beautiful, tough, and sad 2015 original. Head: what had been a smart take on the difficulty of doing right even when you’re righteous — particularly when …
Back in 1989, indie film director Steven Soderbergh broke onto the scene with his first film: sex, lies, and videotape, a seamy, sticky drama about sex, lies, and videotape. Here in 2013, he is giving us what he says will be his last film: a seamy, sticky drama about sex, …
On May 8 of 1986, a pre-teen girl is raped and murdered in rural Germany. (Our view is mostly obscured by waving wheat stalks.) Twenty-three years later, another young girl disappears on the same day. The cops are on the job, but the fact that almost nothing resembling police work …
Directors Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar’s documentary does for the victims of Franco’s reign in Spain what Finding Oscar did for massacre victims in Guatemala — that is, track the dogged efforts of those who refuse to let the past stay buried when the suffering it caused is still very …
Hyper-performing single mother and strangely struggling mommyvlogger Anna Kendrick crosses paths with mysterious and free-spirited career gal Blake Lively. The two bond over martinis and mutual admiration: Kendrick is taken with Lively’s passionate marriage and aggressive attitude; Lively likes Kendrick’s down-home sweetness and motherly devotion. But the marriage doesn’t keep …
Director and co-writer Jacques Audiard knows that the old west’s big open spaces make room for the asking of big open-ended questions, and the biggest one he asks here is, “Can a man change?” Can he break from what origin and circumstance have made him, and actually choose a better …
Writer-director Crystal Moselle’s first foray into fiction (after her documentary The Wolfpack) is less a movie than a visually striking meditation on Being a Girl These Days. Translation: the story is a whisper-thin and not a little fantastical; Peter Pan with Long Islander Camille in place of Wendy, New York …
James Bond lumbers back to his roots. A Bond film is supposed to deliver mayhem and eye candy in exotic locales; Skyfall offers memorable set pieces in Shanghai, Scotland, and an abandoned island factory compound. A Bond film needs gadgets; Skyfall knowingly gives us a personalized Walther and a radio …
Good news: Dwayne Johnson’s take on Towering Inferno is at least better than his Earthquake update, San Andreas. The pleasures here come from watching an extraordinary physical specimen go through a lo-tech workout routine thousands of feet above the ground as he tries to rescue his family from a burning …
Good news: Dwayne Johnson’s take on Towering Inferno is at least better than his Earthquake update, San Andreas. The pleasures here come from watching an extraordinary physical specimen go through a lo-tech workout routine thousands of feet above the ground as he tries to rescue his family from a burning …