(June 22, 2017)
Reviews 47 METERS DOWN. I may have let out an audible groan when the title screen appeared: Johannes Roberts' 47 Meters Down. If you've heard of Johannes Roberts, then you...
(June 15, 2017)
Reviews IT COMES AT NIGHT. As the recent tidal wave of smaller, independent horror movies seems to have receded a bit, we have the opportunity to consider their merits and...
(June 8, 2017)
Reviews WONDER WOMAN. As much as we shouldn't have to be talking about gender or gender inequality anymore, recent events support the notion that we do. Plodding progress continues to...
(June 1, 2017)
Reviews BAYWATCH. Who, really, is to blame when something terrible like this happens? And I say "to blame" rather than "responsible" because there are a great number of responsible parties,...
(May 25, 2017)
Reviews ALIEN: COVENANT. I saw Ridley Scott's ground-breaking Alien (1979) too young and imprinted on its visceral sci-fi horror like a duckling. Artist H.R. Giger, whose work calls to mind...
(May 18, 2017)
Reviews SNATCHED. When Amy Schumer, building on the success both of her stand-up comedy and subversive, hilarious TV show Inside Amy Schumer, made her first foray into the Hollywood mainstream,...
(May 11, 2017)
Reviews THE DINNER. Elliptical awkwardness isn't everybody's thing and that's understandable. In real life, it's almost nobody's thing, and those who enjoy it are challenging to be around, to say...
(May 4, 2017)
THE CIRCLE. Where have all the techno-thrillers gone? I began to wonder this after my disappointing afternoon with The Circle. I claim to be no expert in the subgenre, but...
(April 27, 2017)
Reviews THE PROMISE. And so we revisit the conundrum of the historical drama, tangled with as recently as last week regarding The Zookeeper's Wife. Again, a movie takes as its...
(April 20, 2017)
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...
(April 13, 2017)
TONI ERDMANN. I pride myself on an appreciation of bizarre cinema, from camp to cult to psychedelic to oddball. It's not that I'm steely — plenty of genre films leave...
(April 6, 2017)
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 —...
(March 30, 2017)
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...
(March 23, 2017)
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...
(March 16, 2017)
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...
(March 9, 2017)
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...
