It starts with a close-up of a candle and ends with flaming debris being flung at a castle wall by a catapult — in terms of kicking off a period-piece epic with a single unbroken shot, you could say that Outlaw King sets a high bar. This serpentine opening sequence …
Read More »'The Grinch' Review: You're a Mediocre One, Mr. Grinch
Here’s the perfect, computer-animated holiday fun for kids of all ages — preferably under five, when bright, swirling colors are all we need to distract us. Older children are apt to be skeptical. And anyone past voting age may need to be seriously stoned to swallow it. Don’t get me …
Read More »'Suspiria' Review: Horror Remake Is Mesmerizing, Maddening and a Mess
Polarizing is too tame a word to describe reactions to Luca Guadagnino’s radical rethinking of Suspiria. Either you’ll dig in or bolt for the exit — no in between. For starters, Dario Argento’s 1977 landmark of horror didn’t need a remake. The original, about an exclusively female dance academy run …
Read More »'Beautiful Boy': Carell, Chalamet Star in Gut-Wrenching Addiction Drama
Do “based on a true story” addiction dramas bum you out? My guess is you’ll still be moved by Beautiful Boy — an emotional workout that’s too powerful to resist. Steve Carell, proving again he’s as skilled at drama as he is in comedy, brings a fiercely moving core to …
Read More »'Christopher Robin' Review: Ewan McGregor, Meet a Bear Named Pooh
Fans of A.A. Milne’s delightful stories about an industrious, honey-obsessed bear named Winnie the Pooh and his gang of forest-dwelling droogs — Kanga and her child Roo, pragmatic Rabbit, wise old Owl, anxious Piglet, the emo-dour donkey Eeyore, the manic and possibly Meth-addicted dynamo that is Tigger — may recall …
Read More »'The First Purge' Review: Horror Prequel Gets Even More Pulpy, Political
“Who are you angry at?” “Everyone.“ This is the very first exchange you hear in The First Purge, and to be fair, you can’t accuse the franchise’s latest entry of burying the lede. Given that the person answering the question is a scarred, grinning, maniacal caricature of a crack fiend …
Read More »'Woman Walks Ahead': Biopic on Feminist Painter Is One Big Falsehood
Widowed New York painter Caroline Weldon (Jessica Chastain) travels to South Dakota in 1889 to do a portrait of Sitting Bull (Canadian actor/dancer Michael Greyeyes). It’s the sort true-story premise would be a fascinating starting point for a movie … if said film had more than a nodding acquaintance with …
Read More »'The Leisure Seeker': Road Movie Drives Acting Legends Into a Ditch
Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland can do anything – except, perhaps, save this sentimental drool bucket of senior cinema. It’s not their fault: The Leisure Seeker is a road movie that lets its formidable stars down by shamelessly pandering and following a predictable path to been-there-seen-that. In his first English-language …
Read More »'Justice League' Review: DC Team-Up Keeps It Light, For Better or Worse
For those who loathe Zack Snyder‘s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and they are legion, Justice League will be just the corrective followup they’re looking for. Granted, BvS got a bad rap for staying true to the dark instincts of the DC Comics universe from which it emerged. It’s …
Read More »'It': Stephen King's Psycho-Clown Epic 'Is the Stuff of Nightmares'
Expect all the bleak summer chatter about the dying box office to fade with the opening of It, a crowdpleasing frightfest bound for box-office paydirt. For weeks now, the trailers for the film version of Stephen King‘s terror classic have been cranking us up to lose our shit. That evil …
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