The word that best describes THE CROW is moribund. Even during the ecstatic orgy of bloodletting that caps this reboot of Alex Proyas’ 1994 film, it is somnambulant as it goes through its paces charting the lengths to which true love can push a young man when faced with the devil. Or his charming associate… Read More »
IT ENDS WITH US
IT ENDS WITH US, based on the novel by Colleen Hoover, follows blandly in the grand tradition of the Women’s Films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In it, we meet the effulgently monikered Lily Bloom, a woman with a troubled childhood who is returning home through the exquisite New England autumnal landscape to bury her father.… Read More »
MUSICA
Rudy Mancuso (played by . . . Rudy Mancuso) lives in a slightly different universe than the rest of us. Where we hear the rumble of city life, Rudy hears rhythm and music. Where we see people going about their daily lives, Rudy sees syncopated choreography. And that’s the universe that Mancuso, as director and… Read More »
THE LOST CITY
Let us praise the genius of Sandra Bullock’s gift for physical comedy. It makes even the small business of teetering on a stool in a fuchsia-sequined jumpsuit an epic of determination, embarrassment, grit, and uncertainty. It is in no small part that THE LOST CITY, on which she was also an executive producer, is such… Read More »
CYRANO
Joe Wright has a genius for taking the stories we know all too well and making them feel like a delightful new discovery. Seek no further than his take on ANNA KARENINA (interview here), which, pace fans of Garbo and Leigh, is my favorite adaptation of Tolstoy’s classic. Is it absolutely true to the source… Read More »
FINDING YOU
FINDING YOU is the quintessence of YA fiction brought to cinematic life. In it, our ordinary, yet winsome heroine, Finley Sinclair (Rose Reid) is pursued by a famous movie star, is the only hope of settling a decades-long family feud, and puts all the snooty girls in her orbit in their respective places. All while… Read More »
SENIOR MOMENT
If you are a Wiliiam Shater fanboy or girl, SENIOR MOMENT is the flick you’ve been waiting for. As an aging Lothario with a kooky sidekick (Christopher Lloyd), he oozes the Shatner brand of charm while skating through a predictable story about how Peter Pan finally grows up. He plays Victor, a senior citizen in… Read More »
CHAOS WALKING
CHAOS WALKING is a somber affair told in muddy earth tones and moribund action. Based on the book The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, it presents New World in the year 2257, a distant planet colonized by religious humans who have brought with them much of what they should have left back… Read More »
A GHOST WAITS
While it is tempting to think of A GHOST WAITS as merely one of the best love story involving a ghost since THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, there is a great deal more going on director/co-writer Adam Stovall’s witty, cinematically rich, yet philosophically dense effort. At the risk of being accused of overthinking it, one… Read More »
WILD MOUNTAIN THYME
John Patrick Shanley’s WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, based on his play Outside Mulligan, is a charmer of an Irish muddle. Committed in its gentle eccentricity, it essays to find the mythic in the quotidien and darn near pulls it off. At least sly humor abounds as the determined Rosemary (Emily Blunt) pines for Anthony (Jamie Dornan)… Read More »