“Frankenweenie,” Tim Burton’s stop-motion remake of his own 1984 live-action short, retains the macabre charm of the original while delivering the distinctive animated visuals that audiences have come to expect of the director. The film also, unfortunately, reflects Burton’s usual difficulties with pacing, but let’s save the bad news for later. “Frankenweenie” may be imperfect, […]
Review: “Frankenweenie” Read More »
“Taken 2” is one of those sequels built on the assumption that audiences want what they enjoyed the first time around — nothing more, perhaps a bit less. Based on that line of thinking, the film succeeds, albeit narrowly. The first “Taken” saw Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills, an ex-C.I.A. agent with a savant-like competency at
Rian Johnson’s “Looper” is a phenomenal science-fiction film, full of tantalizing ideas and, more importantly, confident about how to use them. Its story centers around time travel and the violent intersection of an assassin and an older version of himself, a conflict captured through an insidiously clever scenario that allows for alternating scenes of thrilling
“Hotel Transylvania,” the latest piece of CGI animation to be pumped out of a studio that isn’t Pixar, is a so-called family film that will not appeal to any member of the family: adults will be tortured by the unfunny humor and plain-looking animation and children will just want to go home and watch something
Review: “Hotel Transylvania” Read More »
“End of Watch” is a superlative cop film by way of the war movie. That’s not an exaggeration, as its two protagonists, beat officers in the worst part of Los Angeles, patrol an area that seems just about as foreign and violent to most Americans as Afghanistan. The movie departs from the cop genre of
Review: “End of Watch” Read More »
Horror movies are notorious magnets for unruly audience members. The common wisdom is that this is because they are generally made for the demographics most likely to disrupt the viewing experience with loud chatter, bright cell phone screens, and/or overly mobile children. But perhaps it is more a sign of the quality of the movies
Review: “House at the End of the Street” Read More »
In “Trouble with the Curve,” Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams play father and daughter Gus and Mickey Lobel — cartoon character-esque names that were undoubtedly created by screenwriter Randy Brown under the presumption that if he were to pick plainer ones, the viewer would instantly forget them and think of the duo not as characters, but
Review: “Trouble with the Curve” Read More »
“Resident Evil: Retribution” is a certain sort of movie. This is the sort of movie in which the body count would be measured in the hundreds, if anyone were to take on such a Herculean task. This is the sort of movie in which the named characters stroll down narrow corridors against thousands of rounds
Review: “Resident Evil: Retribution” Read More »
At his recent Republican National Convention speech, actor Clint Eastwood first addressed the crowd by saying, “I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what’s a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left-wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people think. That is not really the case. There are
Review: “Last Ounce of Courage” Read More »
“The Words” is a story within a story within a story, and only one of these offers anything that resembles a conclusion. Given writer/directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal’s apparent love of plot–what other Hollywood filmmakers have recently implemented a three-layered structure?–the movie’s abrupt, mildly confusing ending seems auspicious at first. But upon reflection, it
Review: “The Words” Read More »
