Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

We can imagine greater horrors than anything most movie makers can conjure up visually. It’s the unseen unknown that truly terrifies. And for about 25 minutes, “The Void” lives up to that credo and the promise of its title. We … Continue reading →

Those sexist eunuchs that warped a generation discover “The Future is Female” in “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” a Neil Patrick Harris-free reboot of this insipid franchise. There’s no live-action, Smurfs-in-the-Real-World element to the first Smurfs movie since 2013, just polished … Continue reading →

Any  honest, accurate sequel to “Trainspotting,” the 1996 film based on Irvine Welsh’s flinty-funny novel about heroin addiction, love, hijinks and capers going wrong in Edinburgh, would have to be even more littered with corpses than the original. Twenty years … Continue reading →

Animation, if you do it right, is still the surest way to a blockbuster in Hollywood. Dreamworks’ “The Boss Baby” wasn’t to every taste — the very definition of a film earning “mixed reviews” (50% Metacritic), I found the grownup … Continue reading →

So iconoclastic filmmaker Terrence Malick shows up at Austin’s South by Southwest music festival with a camera crew, a cluster of adoring movie stars and no real story. And the result is “Song to Song,” a rambling, insomnia-curing meditation on … Continue reading →

There is no shortage of Holocaust stories that Hollywood wants to tell, and since they concern history’s ultimate “Never forget” horror, that is all well and good. The risk, of course, is that the subject becomes trivialized, rendered trite and … Continue reading →

“Ghost in the Shell” is a sensory overload, eye-popping eye candy movie a visual feast of the “Blade Runner” “Fifth Element” variety. Based on the popular and enduring comic book/anime/Japanese media franchise, it’s dark and dazzling to look at. And … Continue reading →

A vivid recreation of the early history of professional golf is the principle pleasure of “Tommy’s Honour,” a stately, slow and distressingly dull biography of 19th century Scottish golf hero Tom Morris. The film was directed by actor-turned-director Jason Connery, … Continue reading →

The great Werner Herzog rarely takes on the effort of getting a fictional feature film made these days. The director of “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo” and “Rescue Dawn” has found his meditative documentaries to be a better use … Continue reading →

A remote snowy, Northeastern Catholic boarding school, schoolgirls forgotten by their parents over spring break and a sinister presence are the promising ingredients of “The Blackcoat’s Daughter,” a horror thriller concocted by one of the sons of Anthony “Psycho” Perkins … Continue reading →