Monthly Archives: September 2016

On the surface, it looks like the most cynical kids’ cartoon since those godawful “Barbie” straight to videos your little girls adored.. Still, “The Lego Movie” — they’d had years of practice making spoof videos — came off, so maybe … Continue reading →

  Killing time before a recent screening, I ducked into a Big Box Book Store and found myself stopping short at the vast collection of fiction and graphic novels bundled near the entrance. With every given week carrying news of … Continue reading →

I’ve worn out this line, using in virtually every review of a film or TV series based on his work, but it’s worth trotting out one last time. In spy fiction, there is a master, John LeCarre, and then there’s … Continue reading →

Morris Gentry is 13, can’t dance or play basketball and is just too young to make being the only black American kid in Heidelberg, Germany, work for him. “Morris from America” is a puzzle to his classmates, whose language he … Continue reading →

Denzel Washington is still box office in the right vehicle, and that’s what the remake of “The Magnificent Seven” has going for it — Denzel, in a “cool role” as a man of violence. Nobody else in the cast is … Continue reading →

“Mr. Church” is such a departure for Eddie Murphy that you want to praise the intent if not the outcome. An actor reviled for decades of godawful paycheck pictures takes on something resembling an indie dramedy, with a “name” director … Continue reading →

    After all the decades, all the books and documentaries, is there anything new to discover about the alchemy that created The Beatles and their place in pop culture? Not really. Throwing Oscar-winning director Ron Howard and the endless … Continue reading →

There’s a random daftness, or a daft-randomness, that makes the offbeat animated comedy “Storks” fly. I’m not saying it soars, but the throw-away lines, and odd inspired wacky conceit get this film, from the director of “Neighbors” and screenwriter of … Continue reading →

The great Donald Sutherland gets his best screen “entrance” since “M*A*S*H” in the Canadian drama “Milton’s Secret.” Backlit, still ’60s hip, warm and wise, the man still wears a Hawaiian shirt with class. Alas, it’s an entrance wasted on a … Continue reading →

The charms of “Hillsong: Let Hope Rise,” essentially a tour documentary about a big pop band created by an Australian megachurch, plum evaded me. Meandering, stream-of-Biblical consciousness tunes, all under-written and over-produced pop pablum, performed by bearded, ripped-jeans wearing 30something … Continue reading →