ALIEN COVENANT is a mixed bag. As a horror movie, it is unimpeachable, adding an extra self-refractive layer of pleasure to an audience that knows exactly what is lurking there in the giant deserted spaceship that our intrepid space colonists discover. As a vehicle for advancing the meta-story of the Alien franchise, it is far… Read More »
HACKSAW RIDGE
Mel Gibson’s HACKSAW RIDGE begins with a quiet shot looking down (from heaven?) on corpses. They are horrific, with bits missing and gore everywhere. It’s a moment that will quickly give way to the battle of Okinawa that made them. Bodies ripped by bullets falling to the ground, others engulfed in flames running in panic.… Read More »
GODS OF EGYPT
The ancient Greeks preached moderation in all things, and while GODS OF EGYPT is set in that ancient land, not the Peloponnese, I was put in mind of that advice. This is a film of craven excess in all things except what would have helped most: a good script. For two hours or so, we… Read More »
CONCUSSION
By comparing the National Football League’s reaction to medical evidence linking repeated head trauma by its players to long-term brain damage and that of the tobacco industry’s reaction to medical evidence linking cancer and cigarette smoking, CONCUSSION cleverly makes its case. If it were just a case for corporate greed, that would be disturbing enough,… Read More »
TRUTH
James Vanderbilt’s TRUTH is a careful, disturbing dissection of the triumph of style over substance, flash over facts, insinuated itself, and then took over, television news. Based on the book Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power by Mary Mapes, it examines that moment in history when the eponymous truth… Read More »
SAN ANDREAS’ Flight of Fancy
If nothing else, SAN ANDREAS is one of the finest advertisements ever made for the importance of emergency preparedness. Those who survive the state-long earthquake that erupts on the eponymous fault line are either those who know to duck under a table or shelter by a solid wall, or those who are related to those… Read More »
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
George Miller first sent Mad Max blazing across the sere post-apocalyptic landscape in 1979 and thence onto cinematic legend. Sequels followed. Mel Gibson in the eponymous role rose to international fame and, eventually, Miller moved on to different sorts of classics with BABE and HAPPY FEET. Now, thirty years and more later, he is revisiting… Read More »
THE SQUARE
Click here to listen to the interview with Joel Edgerton (17:21)THE SQUARE is a film noir in the classic mold but with a distinctly contemporary flavor. A good man, the temptation of a younger woman, and an indistinct dream of a happily ever after far from the monotony of a cushy, if bland, married life.… Read More »
CHOPPER
Before he was the geek turned unjolly green giant in THE HULK, before he was part of the hapless band of soldiers storming Mogadishu in BLACK HAWK DOWN, Eric Bana turned in a dazzling performance as the most personable psychopath you can imagine in CHOPPER. Fortunately for Bana and for us, the Sundance Channel will… Read More »
MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING
The piquant documentary, MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING, takes on the question of who actually wrote Shakespeares plays and poems. Now, I am of the opinion that in the final analysis, it doesnt really matter. The works speak for themselves and whether they were written by the Bard of Avon or not, they still glimmer with… Read More »