REVIEWS THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE. Period drama can, and in this case does, provide a respite from the breakneck editing and handheld camerawork that have subsumed the modern cinematic lexicon. It can give its creators an opportunity to focus on details of set design and costuming and language that, in a contemporary setting, might not merit […]
John J. Bennett
Posted inArts + Scene
The Old You
Reviews DONALD CRIED. For a small group of us who began refining — or at least establishing, as refinement may or may not have anything to do with it — our cinematic palates in the 1990s, this movie will carry with it some familiar modes and tones. Borne of the same non-movement that would eventually […]
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Motivation
Reviews LIFE. Offered a movie combining a screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, of Deadpool (2016) and Zombieland (2009), and the direction of Daniel Espinosa (Safe House, 2012), one would not necessarily expect that movie to be dark, scary or at times meditative. Nor could one be faulted for being surprised that that movie, […]
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A Big, Hairy Deal
Reviews BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. The centralization of American popular cinema continues, with Disney squarely in the rich middle of it: Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel Studios all live within the shadow of the Magic Kingdom. This means seemingly every mainstream movie without an R rating is likely to have had the Mouse’s big padded hands […]
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Creatures Great and Small
Reviews KEDI. As I age, I see the argument of “cat people” versus “dog people” as an ever more specious one. People will continue to use it to lever their own personal prejudices, of course; such is humanity. But the underlying notion of the innate superiority of one species of furry four-legged thing over another […]
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Battle Scars
Reviews LOGAN. I’ll keep the preamble brief because, if memory serves, I wind up saying essentially the same thing every time a new Marvel movie comes out. As time wears on, and the scale of the Marvel cinematic universe (as well as that of the movies within it) grows ever more (forgive me) cartoonish, I […]
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Sinister Elements
Reviews GET OUT. My (relatively) recent enthusiasm for modern independent horror movies seemed to be on a precipitous slide toward its nadir of late. It was a startling thing to discover, years ago, that directors like James Wan (whom I had written off as part of the cynical torture-porn boom) and producers like Jason Blum […]
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Bad, Bad Men
Reviews JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2. Sequels, by their very nature, tend to place the audience at an impasse of anticipation and expectation. We want more of the same, provided we enjoyed the first installment. But we are bound to be disappointed — besides the more ardent, perhaps less analytical fan-girls and boys among us — […]
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It Ain’t all Gold
Reviews RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER. As anyone who knows me — or has been unfortunate enough to have fallen within the sound of my voice — can attest, I spent the month of January abstinent from alcohol, sugar, grains and dairy products. Hardly a prison sentence and, after the looming-apocalypse bacchanal with which I […]
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Women, Boys and Girls – Indie Hope and Action Despair
Reviews 20TH CENTURY WOMEN. The most heartening thing about this, the latest from writer-director Mike Mills (Beginners, 2010), is that it shores up the notion that independent cinema in America may not be dead, or as close to death as we had suspected. We are currently emerging from a period wherein it was difficult not […]
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The Bostonians
Reviews LIVE BY NIGHT. Up to this point, Ben Affleck’s scorecard for directing is marked with three wins and zero losses: Gone Baby Gone (2007) used local color and emotional realism to take a taut little detective story down some literal and figurative dark alleys; The Town (2010), again using Boston as a backdrop, made […]
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Over the Moon
Reviews LA LA LAND. There was a moment of breath-holding, a couple of years ago, after Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014) had finished taking the world by storm, leaving the great J.K. Simmons holding an Oscar and, likely, more than a few drum sets gathering dust in garages and back bedrooms. That movie — so competent, […]