THE LAST WITCH HUNTER is a long slog. There are few genuine scares. There are few remarkable special effects. There is, instead, a pervasive and persistent lassitude to this tale of an immortal witch hunter, Kaulder (Vin Diesel), and the complicated relationship he has tracking down the eponymous practitioners of magic. Kaulder is very good… Read More »
CRIMSON PEAK
If CRIMSON PEAK offered nothing more than the creepiest bathtub specter since THE SHINING, it would still qualify as a monstrously entertaining film. But this is Guillermo del Toro directing and co-writing, and so the lushness of subtext mirrors the classically Gothic idiom of the story. The paranormal is the least disturbing of the elements… Read More »
BRIDGE OF SPIES
Clad, metaphorically, in a shining armor of truth, and wielding an equally luminous sword of righteousness, Tom Hanks as attorney James Donovan is the embodiment of American virtue, right down to the meat loaf he has for dinner, the which is not touched until he has said grace with his wife and three kids. There was, no… Read More »
THE MARTIAN
THE MARTIAN asks some tough metaphysical questions as it answers some thorny scientific problems with nifty solutions. What’s worth living for? What’s worth dying for? And why should giving up never be an option? The premise is daunting. Mark Watney (Matt Damon), ace botanist and member of the Ares 3 exploratory expedition to Mars in… Read More »
SICARIO
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 »
THE GREEN INFERNO
With an Eli Roth film, one should know what one is getting into, as in, an unspeakably unsettling film that will feature violence, gore, and a side of human nature that does not show the species off to its best advantage.
MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS
THE MAZE RUNNER: SCORCH TRIALS is a fast-paced, involving adventure tale that is better than the original. Where that installment, though entertaining enough, had the usual quota of young adult novel clichés, this one is a lean, mean look at a dystopian future run by an evil entity with noble intentions. Those are, of course,… 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 VISIT
Admittedly the bar has been greatly lowered when approaching any new film from M. Night Shyamalan, quondam wunderkind of cinema, whose SIXTH SENSE left us breathless with delight, and whose subsequent work left us more and more dismayed as the work deteriorated from the thoughtfully disturbing SIGNS, through the kitsch of THE VILLAGE, the silliness… Read More »
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