At one point in Mike Birbiglia’s DON’T THINK TWICE, a character opines that your 20s are for hope, and your 30s are for realizing how dumb that hope was. Yet this finely observed tragi-comedy of art, commerce, and finding happiness takes a more compassionate view of its characters, an improv group that is having the… Read More »
MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES
Based on the real adventures of the Stangle brothers, MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES is a raunchy romp that is fearless in how it skirts the shoals of sleaze before it wades right in. When it does, though, it’s with an amiable nature governing the hijinks and more than a few moments that are… Read More »
OUR KIND OF TRAITOR
John le Carré writes espionage stories in which the action is cerebral and the suspense comes from a keen observation of each protagonist’s character. Thus, the stakes in OUR KIND OF TRAITOR involve much more than the list of names that will topple those in power. They involve the people caught up in the intrigue… Read More »
THE ONES BELOW
There is definitely someone going crazy in THE ONES BELOW, and the wonderful thing about this astringent tale of mystery and suspense is that we have few doubts about who it is. The key word is few. Two couples who have layers, which may or may not be camouflage, experience tragedy, resentment, joy, and childbirth,… Read More »
THE NICE GUYS
Shane Black has the gift of making films that are nail-bitingly suspenseful and wickedly funny at the same time. He did it with KISS KISS BANG BANG, and he’s done it again with THE NICE GUYS, a stylishly acerbic and decidedly hard-boiled neo-Noir pitting nihilism against idealism during the candy-colored decadence of 1977 Los Angeles.… Read More »
MONEY MONSTER
A film that finds a logical reason for the police to shoot a show host on live television, and makes the reason for shooting said host to be for the host’s own good, is a film that is not entirely devoid of interest. MONEY MONSTER is such a film, and this is a good thing, because… Read More »
PAPA: HEMINGWAY IN CUBA
The greatest virtue of PAPA: HEMINGWAY IN CUBA is that it was filmed in Cuba just after it was re-opened to the United States. It still looks the way it did over 50 years ago, when the story is set, which not too long before the United States embargo, protesting Castro’s revolution, went into place.… Read More »
HIGH-RISE
There is nothing subtle about HIGH-RISE, a savage allegorical satire of manic energy and pointed symbolism. Based on the novel of the same name by J.G. Ballard, it stars Tom Hiddleston as an urbane neurologist about to discover his place in the social order, and Jeremy Irons as The Architect (how Masonic?), the emotionally constipated… Read More »
GREEN ROOM
THE GREEN ROOM is technically flawless. Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier has crafted a horror film that plays upon the well-chosen phobias about extremists, backwoods rough justice, and the down side of the music business. Yet, for all the graphic flourishes of dog-mangled throats, a close-up belly slitting, and the results of gunfire meeting flesh, this is… Read More »
LOUDER THAN BOMBS
LOUDER THAN BOMBS begins with a perfect picture of family love. Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) is marveling at his newborn as his wife Amy, (Megan Ketch) looks on beaming. Jonah is beaming, too, and he is aghast that he has forgotten to bring his wife the food she had requested when she discovered that the hospital tray… Read More »
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