There are many iconic moments in SICARIO, but the one that sticks in my mind is the one where dedicated and upright FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is being given the lowdown from glib and slippery DOJ agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) about what winning the war on drugs will really entail. The camera… Read More »
STONEWALL
STONEWALL is a sudsy, underwritten, overwrought effort that is less than the intended tribute to the unsung heroes of the eponymous riots that accelerated the gay liberation movement into the social mainstream. Instead, it is a melodrama of truly epic proportions told with every cliché of gay life as lived in less enlightened times, and with… Read More »
PAWN SACRIFICE
Chess has never been more compelling cinematically than in PAWN SACRIFICE. Whether you know nothing about the game, or you are a grand master, the story of Bobby Fischer’s rise to the world championship, and the toll it took on his already fragile psyche, has all the suspense and intrigue of an espionage thriller. That… Read More »
THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT’s Heart of Darkness
In retrospect, the excesses of Abu Ghraib were all too accurately predicted by the now infamous behavioral experiment conducted in 1971 by Stanford professor, Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup). The dramatization as THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT wisely takes the clinical approach, employing the detachment of the scientific method in recreating the events that are as… Read More »
LILA & EVE Rewrites Revenge
As a portrait of perfect grief, LILA & EVE is unmatched. Blessed with a performance by Viola Davis as Lila, this is one of the best ever filmed. She is fierce, edgy, and heartbreaking as a single mother in a harrowing study of the limits of sanity in the face of unutterable tragedy. Unlike the… Read More »
Welcome to JIMMY’S HALL
Ken Loach has never been a filmmaker to shy away from politics. In fact, a case could be made that the reason he makes films is to explore politics, the which he has done with such strident films as BREAD AND ROSES (union organizing in contemporary Los Angeles) and LAND AND FREEDOM (the Spanish Civil… Read More »
A LITTLE CHAOS — A Little Too Little
A LITTLE CHAOS, not to be too precious about it, could have used a little more actual chaos. This handsomely executed historical drama is by turns ponderous and interesting, but interesting in a removed, unengaged fashion that renders the whole far less than the sum of its parts. Directed by co-star and co-writer Alan Rickman,… Read More »
JURASSIC WORLD Bigger Dinosaurs, Less Fun
There’s a problem when the most complex character in a film is the dinosaur. Then again, JURASSIC WORLD is a film, that like the eponymous amusement park depicted within its two-hour or so running time, has only those extinct animals to offer by way of novelty. Not that this quasi-sequel to JURASSIC PARK is bad,… 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 »
TANGERINES (Mandariinid)
There are films that tear you limb from limb with their shrill bombast and flagrant moralizing, and then there are films like TANGERINES, that quietly break your heart with the folly of humankind. This year’s Oscar™ nominee for best foreign language film from Estonia is an anti-war statement of the first order, and one that… Read More »
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