There are precisely two redeeming features in Harmony Korine’s latest work, THE BEACH BUM. One, and I don’t care if this is a spoiler or not, the cat is just fine as the end credits roll. Two, Martin Lawrence as the dolphin-loving Captain Whack. He’s so good, in fact, that one hopes for a spin-off… Read More »
THE DARK TOWER
Intermittently garrulous, yet generally somnambulant, THE DARK TOWER disappoints on almost every level. Based on the Stephen King series of the same name, the cinematic version blows a kiss to the novels, then goes its own way plot-wise for reasons that defy explanation, unless it’s a scheme similar to the one in Mel Brooks’ classic… Read More »
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS continues Laika’s string of arresting, unconventional stop-motion animated films that are both sophisticated and enchanting. Like PARANORMAN and CORALINE, KUBO is audacious enough to tackle serious subjects and to do so with no pretense about the finality of death, or the reality of evil. Taking its cue from Joseph Campbell’s… Read More »
GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST
The only thing of note in GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST is that its star, Matthew McConaughey, doesn’t remove his shirt. Otherwise this retread of A Christmas Carol only serves to prove that a good story can be ruined with a bad retelling. For the whole redemption aspect of the story to actually pay off, the… Read More »
THE LINCOLN LAWYER
THE LINCOLN LAWYER is a smart, taut, and well-told neo-noir. The setting is Los Angeles, among the low-lifes and the well-to-do, where they meet and the consequences thereof. It follows the formula for such genre flicks, but has an impudent originality in the telling. The titular lawyer, Michael Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is a savvy practitioner… Read More »
FRAILTY
In the opening scene of FRAILTY, a man calls his brother and tells him that the world is full of demons. He then takes a gun and blows his brains out. Like the film itself, this scene is telling the truth and lying at that same time. The intricate plotting of this disturbing Southern gothic… Read More »
TWO FOR THE MONEY
The human mind is an amazing thing. Over the course of evolution, it has developed a host of fascinating mechanisms geared towards its survival in any number of harsh environments, be it the plains of Africa a million years ago, or the terrors of bad cinema at today’s local multiplex. It’s the latter that stirred… Read More »
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
There is one wildly funny sequence in FAILURE TO LAUNCH, an otherwise pallid and predictable slog. That it features the supporting players and a bird rather than stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey is emblematic of where this film went so very, very wrong. Parker plays Paula, a professional interventionist hired by concerned parents… Read More »
FOOL’S GOLD
FOOL’S GOLD takes a radical approach to its genre. It is an adventure without thrills, a comedy without laughs, romance without heat, and a family drama without heart. A sublimely ironic deconstruction of cinematic conventions? If only. What we have here is filmmaking that is forced, flimsy and flaky. At best. Matthew McConaughey and Kate… Read More »
KILLER JOE
There are truths about human nature that only brutality in its rawest form can depict. Such is the concept embraced with both verve and style by William Friedkin in KILLER JOE, a tale of moral compasses gone askew, dysfunctional family dynamics taken to their logical extreme, and human life reduced to a commodity on a… Read More »