This is a very pretty movie, but with plot holes large enough to drive a flock of Dorset sheep through. It’s a film where the main character, Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan), promises to “astonish you all,” […]
review – age of adaline
You’ve seen this basic plot before. It’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” maybe even “Winter’s Tale.” It’s the kind of picture the studios release around Valentine’s Day, a soft […]
review – woman in gold
This is a movie that will restore your faith in the power of movies. The story is true, the dialog is often witty, the plot moves effortlessly between the past and present. The staging is […]
review – danny collins
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” English Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans, who used the pen name George Eliot, wrote that more than 150 years ago, but she could have […]
review – furious 7
If you believe that too much of a “good thing” is a “great thing,” have I got a movie for you. Although it’s released in April, this is a fitting introduction for a “summer of […]
review – get hard
As the double-entendre title makes clear: this intends to be a raunchy comedy – and it is. Fortunately, Will Ferrell is just an overgrown kid at heart; he uses that to guide his performance and […]
review – the second best exotic marigold hotel
Ah, finally, a movie made for adults that’s not relentlessly offensive and even embarrassing to so many adults. A movie you can recommend to your mother and she won’t ask you later: What was going […]
review – cinderella
How do you refresh a folk story so well known, a Disney classic so well-loved? If you’re director Kenneth Branagh and screenwriter Chris Weitz, you do it one character at a time, rethinking and reimagining […]
review – focus
This is fizzy, frothy fun. And it all works better if you don’t focus too closely. The leads (Will Smith and Margot Robbie) are likeable, even charismatic; any question about their uneven chemistry may be […]
review – mcfarland, usa
This may be the “feel good” movie of the first quarter. Yes, it’s a bit long and with the subject of cross country running, it’s not quite as exciting as it might be with another […]
review – taken 3
A half-dozen years ago, with the first movie that began this franchise, Liam Neeson seemed to have given new life to his career. At an age where he was a bit old to be a […]
review – still alice
This is both frightening and enlightening work. It’s a fully-affecting performance in a fully-disquieting movie. As the story goes deeper and the situation becomes more desperate, we feel helplessly trapped in the downward spiral of […]
review – american sniper
Clint Eastwood has directed thirty films, not all of them good. But, when he gets it right, he makes stripped-down entertainment that engages our mind, speaks to our heart, and leaves us changed by the […]
review – selma
This works better as an important history lesson than it does as a dramatic movie. It’s better written than it is edited, more authentically staged than it is emotionally engaging. It feels slow, stretched out, […]
review – into the woods
I love movie musicals. I could watch them forever – which is approximately how long this one seemed to go on. At just over two hours, it seems like it’s at least a half hour […]
review – the gambler
In a word, this movie is “tedious.” And blame that on Mark Wahlberg. He brings no emotional involvement to Jim Bennett, his gambling-addicted character who’s at the center of this story. He shows no elation […]
review – unbroken
Laura Hillenbrand, author of the book “Unbroken,” is a writer of great taste and enormous talent. She told the true, fully-human story of Louis Zamperini in a way that put his horrific experiences in World […]
review – big eyes
Think of this as “the beauty and the buffoon,” a potentially-intriguing story in which Tim Burton’s direction and Christoph Waltz’s performance force Amy Adams to act against a cartoonish character. The result is a husband-wife […]
review – wild
Director Jean-Marc Vallee has proven (in last year’s “Dallas Buyers Club”) that he can tell powerful stories by getting extraordinary performances from his actors — and he gets one from Witherspoon here. Make-up free for […]
review – top five
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 […]
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 […]
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 