Monthly Archives: July 2016

Comic books and the ultimate movie nerd. A marriage made in hell.

“Logic,” the great thriller director Alfred Hitchcock once intoned, “is dull.” So don’t try to pin down the geography of the long chase that is “North by Northwest,” don’t question too deeply how “The Birds” were able to pin down … Continue reading →

Actually, when you add up the notices, all three wide releases this weekend sit right on the cusp of widely endorsed. The dislike is lukewarm, the endorsements likewise. That goes for “Jason Bourne,” an all-chase, no character-development return to the … Continue reading →

“Nerve” is a thriller that almost lives up to its name. A jumpy and tech-savvy plunge into the Digital Death of Privacy that today’s youngest webheads/cell-addicts are embracing, it manages to be cautionary but cute, menacing but alluring at the … Continue reading →

If only “Bad Moms” possessed the guts to live down to its title, the wit to deliver on its premise. An over-reach for a “Hangover” styled spin on motherhood with drugs, sex, booze and “experimentation,” it reaches “raucous” on occasion. … Continue reading →

They weren’t much to start with, but the “Ice Age” movies are officially two or three installments past their expiration date with “Ice Age: Collision Course.” A laugh-starved kids’ cartoon, it has nothing to recommend it to adults save for … Continue reading →

There’s something inherently hilarious about the very idea of Dinesh D’Souza, a smug brown foreign person pandering to elderly, xenophobic white persons as he demonizes the political party that represents most other brown persons in his adopted country. Not as … Continue reading →

The Bourne bodycount soars as Bourne bystanders are mowed down by that Bourne in a china shop, the Bourne who would be Bond, “Jason Bourne” for the re-teaming of Matt Damon with his best Bourne director, Paul Greengrass. It’s the … Continue reading →

Here’s something Hollywood “revenge” thrillers always get wrong. They always give their hero “special skills.” You know, what Liam Neeson bragged about in “Taken,” what Sly Stallone let others attribute to him in “Rambo.” Real thrills and real engagement with … Continue reading →

Horror survived its widely criticized “torture porn” phase — movies with nubile young women and occasionally handsome young actors eviscerated, etc., on the screen. And it will survive writer-director Ben Cresciman’s self-consciously obscure and artsy variation, which could be labeled … Continue reading →