Monthly Archives: January 2013

In nature, lightning occasionally strikes the same place twice. In the movies, it almost never happens. So as good as Liam Neeson was in “Taken,” as good as he often is in “Taken 2,” the sequel — about the family … Continue reading →

“Jack and Diane” is a dour and downbeat young-lesbians-in-love romance that spares us those usual motion picture viewing experiences — the occasional high and low. It’s flat, with the inexpressive Jack (Riley Keogh of “Magic Mike”) putting the unromantic and … Continue reading →

The WuTang Clan rapper RZA, aka Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, takes on acting, writing, directing, composing and rapping duties on his film, “The Man with the Iron Fists.” That makes him, what, a quintuple threat? And a threat to what? He’s … Continue reading →

 From the moment her name and the subject of her next film was announced, you knew Meryl Streep’s performance as/impersonation of Margaret Thatcher had Oscar written all over it. And true to form, the Academy might as well emboss her … Continue reading →

 When everything in a movie is an effect, they cease to be “special.” So limiting effects to the basics, especially in a horror movie, especially one as lean and primal as “intruders,” is how you make them truly “special” again … Continue reading →

Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, co-writers and directors of “The Intouchables,” had to be feeling pretty good about themselves and their movie. A blockbuster in France, a hit throughout Europe, winners of Cesar (the French Oscars) and David di Donatello … Continue reading →

Driss is handsome, young, black and brash. He’s the sort of bully who stomps into a room and impatiently storms to the front of the line because he doesn’t have the patience to wait his turn, and he has the … Continue reading →

 A middling thriller wrapped around a compelling lecture about the child sex trade in Southeast Asia, “Trade of Innocents” gives us a peek at a sordid underworld, but a full view of the conditions that feed it. “Inspired by real … Continue reading →

Writer-director Ti West goes where many — especially Stephen King — have gone before with “The Innkeepers,” a handsome looking but utterly flat-footed tale of a haunted hotel.

There’s an adorable, cutesy vulgarity at work in “Hysteria,” a semi-serious Victorian era comedy about the liberating power of the first electrical vibrator. And if you blushed on reading that, imagine the shades of crimson and snickering amongst cast and … Continue reading →