Tower wobbles, Detroit burns and Kidnap is on the run
(August 10, 2017)
Reviews THE DARK TOWER. It's never surprising when a Stephen King novel series is adapted for film, but an eight-book series? In 95 minutes? The Dark Tower turns out to...
(August 3, 2017)
Reviews ATOMIC BLONDE. So we return to the conundrum of The Good Trailer. On one hand, good trailers can surprise us like beautiful gifts. Because so many movies register as...
(July 27, 2017)
Reviews DUNKIRK. Christopher Nolan is something of a professional dinosaur. He broke out with Memento (2000), a challenging, compelling and unlikely low-budget surprise, just as the era of the Big...
(July 20, 2017)
The Hero It seems I've written fairly frequently of late — probably too frequently — about the bright possibility of hope dispelling the corrosive recent mists of cinematic mediocrity and...
(July 13, 2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming A chorus, sweetened by the voices of multitudes, echoes brightly through the halls of mediadom; even the nerds have lent their breath. And they are not wrong: new...
(July 6, 2017)
Reviews BABY DRIVER. Writer/director Edgar Wright — like Tarantino before him and Scorsese before him — has managed to make a successful career of being a tremendous movie nerd. Unashamed...
(June 29, 2017)
Reviews What makes a movie "American"? Is it patriotic or critical? Is it about identity, individualism, team spirit or oppression? Is it set in the Wild West or a modern...
(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...
