Friday, March 13, 2020
After being pulled from the release calendar in the fall of 2019 in the wake of a summer of mass shootings, Universal and Blumhouse’s “The Hunt,” a titillating, topical take on “The Most Dangerous Game,” took on the sheen of something forbidden, illicit, too shocking to be seen. It’s a bit o…
Every few years, Vin Diesel likes to remind audiences that he does do movies that are not of the fast and furious or alien tree variety. He’ll throw in an “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” or a “The Last Witch Hunter” to remind us all he’s more than Groot or Dom Toretto. He can also be a generic …
Friday, March 06, 2020
There’s an interesting extra layer to “The Way Back” that almost eclipses this stripped-down sports drama. The scrappy high school underdog basketball tale in the style of “Hoosiers,” or “The Mighty Ducks,” directed by “Warrior” helmer Gavin O’Connor bears the weight of our parasocial relati…
“Onward,” the newest animated adventure from Disney/Pixar, finally brings mainstream representation to a group previously relegated to the margins of popular culture: the fantasy-obsessed metalhead. In this warm tale of brotherly love forged during an epic coming-of-age quest, Chris Pratt vo…
Friday, February 28, 2020
You may have seen her nearly getting pulled down a sink by a killer clown. Or going to extremes to cope with severe childhood loss. Or, lately, staggering toward you, covered in blood, recognizable only via her startling blue eyes.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Friday, February 21, 2020
The ’90s and early aughts were a golden era for black cinema, in particular the black romantic drama.
Much like our furry friends, movies about man’s best friend come in all shapes and sizes: lost dog movies, talking dog movies, military dog movies, reincarnated dog movies. “The Call of the Wild,” directed by Chris Sanders and based on the classic novella by Jack London, is what one might ca…
Saturday, February 15, 2020
When you’re pondering “Hamilton,” it’s never clear whether you are talking about something distinct and unique in the realm of live entertainment, or a bellwether of future trends. But one thing’s for sure. Lin-Manuel Miranda knows how to make choices that pay off.
Friday, February 14, 2020
Watching Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s deeply uncomfortable absurdist relationship drama “Force Majeure,” one can’t help but think that this bleakly obtuse and existentially unbearable film is the type that would never be greenlighted in the United States. So it’s a bit of a shock that th…
Sunday, February 09, 2020
Ahead of tonight’s 92nd Academy Awards, Associated Press Film Writer Jake Coyle shares his predictions for a ceremony with a lot of locks but the potential for a few surprises.
Friday, February 07, 2020
The best thing to come out of 2016’s much-derided DC antihero team-up “Suicide Squad” was Margot Robbie’s inspired take on Harley Quinn, the self-proclaimed “Joker’s girl” and quirky chaos clown. Robbie’s Quinn, with her colorful pigtails and baseball bat, instantly became an icon, a perenni…
Remember last year when I thought that maybe, just maybe, the movie that won the international feature Oscar would go on to make history and become the first foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for best picture?
Award-winning director and cinematographer Reed Morano has tackled dystopian futures in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the end of the world in “I Think We’re Alone Now” and devastating grief in “Meadowland.” Her third feature film, “The Rhythm Section,” combines a bit of all these themes, though it …
In 1967, Twentieth Century Fox undertook an expensive and complicated production of “Doctor Dolittle,” based on a series of children’s books by Hugh Lofting, about a doctor in Victorian England who talks to animals. Starring Rex Harrison, “Doctor Dolittle” was a notoriously doomed production…
The 2020 Oscar nominations were announced Monday morning to lots of... mixed feelings. If you want to catch up on some of the nominated films, here's some information about where you can watch them.
At the heart of Sam Mendes’ World War I movie “1917” is a beautiful trick: a brilliant feat of camera work (by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins) that causes us to believe that nearly its entire two hours was filmed in a continuous, unbreaking shot. Two young British soldiers – Schofie…
“Just Mercy” is solid, meat-and-potatoes docudrama filmmaking, if you don’t mind a first-rate story of systemic injustice undercut by second-rate dialogue. No character can go two sentences without clarifying a legal point for the audience’s benefit, or reiterating a tidy, just-so note of st…
The opening shot of “Underwater” roves around the empty, industrial passageways of some kind of transport vessel, the walls creaking. Motivated by an unknown force, the camera’s pan ultimately lands on Norah (Kristen Stewart), who has cropped bleached hair and a mouthful of toothpaste, clad …
He appears out of nowhere at the tail end of the Safdie brothers’ acclaimed crime drama “Uncut Gems,” playing a sleazy operator who helps a young woman ferry bags of cash to the Mohegan Sun. He makes quite an impression – the feathered hair of a 1970s rock star, a dazzling white smile and th…
John Cho is breathing new life into a deadly story.
After all the romps romped, all the dances danced and the little women of Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” married off, this is the story of a girl and her book, the copyright negotiated, the pages cut, the gold leaf stamped. In Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s blockbuster 1869 novel,…
Will Smith has had a hit or miss year at the movies. His experiment with high-frame-rate action and acting opposite a digital composite of his younger self in Ang Lee’s “Gemini Man” didn’t exactly light the world on fire. So it’s nice that he’s closing out the year on a more positive note, w…
One week after the tepid box office reception for “Richard Jewell,” a well-acted, sneakily political, fact-adjacent drama of no little controversy, here comes “Bombshell” – another well-acted, sneakily political and fact-adjacent picture, representing the other side of what’s left of the ais…
