Daily Archives: September 27, 2017

Another sci-fi best seller — this one by Jeff VanderMeer — earns a big screen treatment, this time courtesy of Alex “Ex Machina” Garland. “Annihilation” gives us an alien entity that doesn’t look like, oh, Klingons or Borg or humans … Continue reading →

“I’m not psychic,” our young narrator reassures us. She’s just a near-savant at guessing numbers, cards, the right slot machine to toss a quarter into. That’s a skill even a tween can use in Reno, Nevada. Maybe she got it … Continue reading →

Gun-fetishizing, catch-phrasing, “Back in Black” set mayhem from a cranky old action star and a torture porn famous director. Yay.

So what has Hollywood shoved down our throats too often and for too long over recent decades? Hit-man movies –as thrillers and comedies. And Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. The aged body builder’s slide into irrelevance probably won’t be halted by a … Continue reading →

The long strange odyssey of Christian Bale’s Oscar-winning/cape wearing career takes another turn with “Hostiles,” a Western of moral ambiguity, dust and violence. Back in the Golden Age of Movies, leading men had benchmark roles. You did your combat film, … Continue reading →

A little “Kinsey,” a hint of “The Whole Wide World,” and the secret history of the character who inspired the year’s biggest box office hit — “Wonder Woman.” And the story of the man, the two women he loved (and … Continue reading →

  “American Made” gives Tom Cruise his “Goodfellas,” and brings Doug “The Bourne Identity” Liman back from the directing wilderness. In Barry Seal, Cruise has a real person to bite into, a drawling, unquestioning, self-delusional anti-hero who parlayed gonzo flying … Continue reading →