Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

Remember, acting guru Constantin Stanislavski preached, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” He must have dreamed there’d be a film as closely scrutinized, with its tiniest performances parsed and scrutinized, as “Star Wars.” “Elstree 1976” is a documentary … Continue reading →

A decent Saturday got Melissa McCarthy over, and “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” gave up the top spot at the box office. A $24 million+ take by midnight Sunday is now projected, “Batman” will be less than a million … Continue reading →

Melissa McCarthy’s new picture, “The Boss,” is set to narrowly lose the weekend to “Batman v. Superman,” just based on Friday night’s numbers. Her best day is going to be Saturday (today), and “Batman” is fading. Fast. So maybe the … Continue reading →

As I noted in my review, it can’t be healthy that Melissa McCarthy is entrusting at least a little of her career to her quite-unfunny husband, Ben Falcone. It’s “tragic” that he turns out to be, as her co-writer and … Continue reading →

I like the cast I see (Felicity Jones, an interesting actress to hang a picture on, Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, Alan Tudyck, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelson) and I see a fresher take — a chamber piece in the “Star Wars” … Continue reading →

“Hardcore Henry” is a dazzlingly ambitious technical exercise, the most wholly-realized “first person” point-of-view action picture ever made. Writer-director Ilya Naishuller and a trio of cinematographers, strapped up with tiny GoPro cameras, have turned a first-person-shooter (FPS) video game into … Continue reading →

It happens to every big screen comic sooner or later. Eventually, some desperate director, working from a deathly-dull script, pleads into that comic’s ear, “Just get in front of the camera and DO something, SAY something, ANYTHING funny.” And a whole … Continue reading →

“Midnight Special” is a cryptic and suspenseful sci-fi road picture, a thriller so tightly pitched it would work even without the magical science fiction element. Writer-director Jeff Nichols has done some of his best work with children (“Mud”) and Michael … Continue reading →

The supply of military acronyms is endless and ever-growing, a point reinforced by the superb “Eye in the Sky,” a thriller about drone warfare. There’s “CDE,” “collateral damage estimate,” and “PID” (“positive identification”). But when it comes to the most … Continue reading →

Spoiler alert — God’s still not dead in “God’s Not Dead 2.” Actually, that’s a better title, but let’s not quibble or chase camels through the eye of a needle. The faithful are taken to court for this sequel to … Continue reading →