Tis the season of self-validation. Michael Keaton is proving he can transition from “Batman” to “Birdman.” Reese Witherspoon is showing she can be authentically “Wild,” rather than just “Legally Blonde.” And now Chris Rock is […]
Category: In Theaters
review – inherent vice
This head trip of a movie seems to have at least a rough destination in mind, but – and blame it on the drugs — it’s also willing to wander down endlessly-confusing and always-convoluted back […]
review – horrible bosses 2
The original “Horrible Bosses” was clever. This one is crude to the point of being cringe-worthy. It keeps the cast, but jettisons most else. Gone are credibility, the exaggerated boss-worker relationships, and any semblance of […]
review – ‘nightcrawler’
Well, this one made me wish we could revisit the Hayes code for a day or two, just to clean up the mess. Here we have a film where the protagonist is a sociopathic criminal […]
review – the imitation game
The tagline on the first teaser poster accurately summarized its plot succinctly: “The true enigma was the man who cracked the code.” His name was Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) and from the beginning, he was […]
review – foxcatcher
If you want a clear indication that the industry’s lost touch with the average movie-goer, consider the praise being heaped on this lumbering lump of a movie. This is a predictable story told thinly and […]
review – ‘all relative’
With a premise that almost at once rings as being a deep vein to mine comedy from, writer / director J. C. Khoury seems to rather skim the surface instead. The first third of […]
review – the homesman
As a writer-director, Tommy Lee Jones has an enduring attraction for the rugged west. He went there in 2006 for his directorial debut, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada;” now he’s back with a western […]
review – ‘jessabelle’
Why bother with something original when you can just mash little bits of this and that and arrive at something that might put a few butts in the auditorium style seating? And here, writer / […]
review – interstellar
In a movie filled with A-list talent, the biggest name here is one whose face is never on screen. This is a “Christopher Nolan movie” and once again, he and his brother Jonathan have written […]
review – the theory of everything
What an amazing performance. This is not so much a movie as it is a magic show in which Eddie Redmayne completely vanishes – slowly — and Stephen Hawking appears in his place and Eddie […]
review – big hero 6
Disney owns both Pixar and Marvel and so it may have only been a matter of time before Walt Disney Studios made a single movie combining the sensibility of the first with the action orientation […]
review – john wick
This is one hyper-violent movie. It’s also fragmented and choppy with unexplained and unrealistic sequences that go nowhere. Most images are so dark they’re difficult to see; many are so bloody they’re difficult to watch. […]
review – gone girl
I loved the book and the movie follows it closely — but this movie version is way, way too long. The story twists and turns, but throughout, nearly every scene could be trimmed – and […]
review – the judge
This movie is not nearly as good as it deserves to be. With A-list talent both on screen and behind the scenes, this should crackle with humor and human drama. Instead, the story wanders, the […]
review – a walk among the tombstones
Liam Neeson is a kind of likeable “everyman.” Every year, in recent times, he makes a small, tight action movie in which he rescues himself, his wife, his daughter — or some combination — from […]
review – ‘honeymoon’
First time director Leigh Janiak has made herself a tight little indie horror film. Debuting earlier this year at SXSW, ‘Honeymoon’ features Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones) and Harry Treadaway leading a familiar, ‘cabin in […]
review – the drop
This is the patient person’s crime thriller. It’s slow, deliberate, measured, fragmented in its approach. Characters emerge from the shadows, surrounded by silences. Everything starts in a reflection. The film takes its time to set […]
review – the skeleton twins
This is a poignant, often painful story of a brother and a sister whose rapport is real and lovingly abrasive. It’s a movie for everyone who has ever been part of a family. Milo (Bill […]
review – the identical
I hate to see this happen: a faith-based organization invests in a movie as a way to produce revenue and/or converts for their cause – and, in this case, most likely does neither. This may […]
review – chef
The story here is thin, the comedy is gentle; there are times when you wonder what this movie is really all about, but its heart is always in the right place. If you’re looking for […]
review – the november man
What a disjointed disappointing disaster of a movie. The plot is a confusing patchwork of political nonsense. The dialog lapses often into trite clichés. The editing is choppy, the acting is mediocre, the pacing is […]
review – the expendables 3
In a Sylvester Stallone movie, you never need to ask: Is the plot plausible? Is the dialog coherent? Are the ideas fresh? The answers: of course not. But if you were to ask: Is this […]
review – the hundred foot journey
The trailer will tell you exactly where this movie is going – and it pretty much goes there – but with warmth and humor and lots of special moments along the way. This is a […]
review – lucy
This movie is based on an intriguing and fairly well-known premise: humans use only about ten percent of their brains. What would happen if an ordinary person were able to access much more? Well…first a […]
