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Classical tragedy mixed with moderate sadism and Polanski-ish surrealism, upstart filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest test of audience endurance plays like Sophie’s Choice by way of the ‘burbs. Don’t let that description be deceptive — it may not be everyone’s proverbial cup of tea. Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster) builds his bizarre revenge tale around a heart surgeon, … Continue reading
Rife with potential, the film adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s bestselling crime novel makes for frustrating viewing, even more so now that director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) recently revealed that 10-15 percent of the script was never filmed. Sadly, there’s probably a good movie buried in it somewhere; ironically, cutting more … Continue reading
Superheroes tend to keep a secret identity in order to protect themselves and those around them, but the creators of the four-color heroes we know and love are usually free from such burdens. This was not the case with Dr. William Moulton Marston, the co-inventor of the polygraph machine and co-creator of Wonder Woman, the … Continue reading
Matt Vaughn’s follow-up to his 2015 out-of-left-field action comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service is modestly entertaining, but the high evaporates quite quickly. The Golden Circle suffers from a classic case of sequelitis: it aims to go bigger than the original, but more does indeed wind up being less. The thrill of the new and the unexpected are … Continue reading
When self-styled auteur Darren Aranofsky can astound us when he is focused and operating with at least a little self-restraint. (Case in point: The simple brilliance of The Wrestler.) When allowed to run amok, you get the intense weirdness of Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. And then there’s mother!. Note the stylized spelling … Continue reading
Part coming-of-age story, part monster movie, It is a masterful horror flick that arrives just in time to breathe a little life — and some well-tuned terror — into a very limp movie season. A white-knuckler of an experience, it also offers succor to jaded Stephen King fans still fuming over the fiasco of The … Continue reading
The long-awaited adaption of Stephen King’s Dark Tower sci-fi/dark fantasy novels may well go down as the most disappointing movie of 2017. Fans have been clamoring for one since the ’90s, and versions have been on and off for a decade. Pity them, for the final product is cheap, shoddy, and bland to a confounding degree.ä … Continue reading
Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s latest collaboration (following The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty) is provocative, infuriating, emotionally exhausting, and entirely timely. Like those previous two films, it utilizes a gritty, no-punches-pulled docu-drama style to explore a brutal war zone — one within America’s own borders. The movie begins with the raid of an illegal … Continue reading
A man dies tragically and returns as a ghost draped in a white sheet with eye holes cut in it, and silently haunts his former spouse and the home they once shared. On the surface, it’s a goofy premise that most filmmakers would play for laughs, schlock, and/or sugary schmaltz of the highest order. However, … Continue reading
After 20 years of film-making defined by gritty Batman movies, twisty crime thrillers, and trippy science fiction, Christopher Nolan again re-invents himself with what is on the surface is a gripping war movie, but in actuality an exercise in heightened realism and a memorial to an event that ultimately shaped the world. For the uninitiated, … Continue reading
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