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 […]
Tag: movie review
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 […]
review – boyhood
For those old enough to remember the 1960’s this may remind them of a classic Kodak commercial from those days. A father had sent to Kodak pictures he had taken of his young daughter named […]
review – dawn of the planet of the apes
When the final credits ended, there were just two of us in the theatre and we ended up leaving together. “So, what did you think of the movie?” he asked me. “It was OK,” I […]
review – life itself
This is a difficult movie to watch because it’s more about Roger Ebert, the very sick man, than it’s about Roger Ebert, the very popular movie critic. For continuity, it’s uses lots of sequences from […]
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 