Yearly Archives: 2018

I have this weird thought every time I see Michael Peña in a movie. And he’s in a LOT of movies, most often as the hero’s pal, Ant-Man’s sidekick, etc. Every other Hispanic actor in Hollywood must hate him. Seriously, … Continue reading →

Sundance favorite, Chloe Grace Moretz star vehicle, with Jennifer Ehle taking on the Glenn Close/Louise Fletcher “Cruella meets Nurse Ratched”  villainness, and now opening Aug. 3. The funny choice is pairing Moretz with her darker skinned, dreadlocked doppelganger, Sasha Lane … Continue reading →

  Preposterous on an epic scale, “Skyscraper” is “Towering Inferno” meets “Die Hard” — “Hard Inferno” — starring man mountain Dwayne Johnson as King Kong. Universal and writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber have The Rock clambering up the world’s tallest building — … Continue reading →

How overfamiliar does a horror movie have to be before even the filmmakers have to wonder, “Why bother?” “The Ritual,” a British eOne/Netflix production, packs a bunch of boy-bonding lads off into the wilds of Sweden. No “found footage,” but … Continue reading →

There’s a reason the romantic conversations here have a wordy/moonstruck, up-the-romantic-stakes feel, even as the world they’re delivered in feels lived-in and real. Dan Fogelman wrote and directed “Life Itself,” and this trailer plays like his more famous creation, “This … Continue reading →

There’s an implicit covenant between filmmaker and audience, one that Tim Sutton, director of “Dark Night” repeatedly violates. You can make your movie an attention-demanding exercise, invite us into your head by under-explaining, telling your story with tone, mournful music … Continue reading →

This one opens in March of next year. There’s zero conflict or the possibility of conflict in this first teaser, so something’s missing. I mean, I don’t expect “Action Point,” heaven forbid. But…something.

  The short answer to that headline question is “No.” Even on Netflix, director Kelly Reichardt’s movies are the ultimate acquired taste. Austere to the point where tiny gestures are magnified into moments of enormous consequence, silent save for the … Continue reading →

The people who made “The Lobster” have opted for “period piece” for their next trick, a dark comedy about the reign of daft Queen Anne of Great Britain. With Olivia Colman as God Save Me and Rachel Weisz as her … Continue reading →

  All of my leisure reading is taken up with non-fiction, with the odd fiction classic thrown in just to clear the palette (Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Patrick O’Brian). And as I read this history of Dunkirk or that Life of … Continue reading →