Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

Innocuous to the point of insipid and unfailingly inane, “Relationship Goals” is exactly what you’d expect of a rom-com based on a self-help book by a self-promoting preacher. It’s the sort of romance where we wait for close to 90 … Continue reading →

“She Walks in Darkness” is a Spanish police thriller that’s content with being more of a solid and sturdy take on its subject than a thrilling and suspenseful one. There are tense moments, here and there, most of which aren’t … Continue reading →

Before every threatrical “type,” there is an archetype, the model which inspires every version of that theme that follows. At some point, sometime between the Golden Age of Tony Randall and “Ellen,” the “gay best friend” emerged as a movie, … Continue reading →

Luc Besson’s “Dracula” is pretty much like everybody else’s “Dracula.” Our Eastern European prince — played by Caleb Landry Jones — is dolled up in the style of Francis Ford Coppola’s ’92 take on “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” There’s a Mina … Continue reading →

“Solo Mio” is a mild-mannered comedy of the “Left at the Altar/Honeymoon Goes Wrong” school. It’s a little “Runaway Bride,” a lot of “Honeymoon Crasher” or “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” but without any of the edge or many of the laughs … Continue reading →

The gone-too-soon passing of the great Canadian funnywoman Catherine O’Hara last week had an added touch of pathos about it that other great comedians could appreciate — the timing. O’Hara went to that great Second City Alumi Reunion in the … Continue reading →

How do you screw up a “ticking clock thriller,” the surest among the sure-things in the action picture genre? You mess around with the “clock” too much, for starters. In “96 Minutes,” set mostly aboard a couple of bullet trains … Continue reading →

Long before he became “The Boy from Oz,” and just as he was considering growing his sideburns for the role that made him, Hugh Jackman co-starred in a featherweight rom-com from Oz that established his sweet and “sensistive” credentionals on … Continue reading →

Preston Sturges may have had a decade of sparkling dialogue for films and such scripts as the holiday delight “Remember the Night” and “The Good Fairy” on his resume when he finally got to use “written and directed by” in … Continue reading →

A nearly forgotten piece of World War II lore is brought back to life in the Chinese epic “Dongji Rescue.” It’s about the Oct. 1942 sinking of a Japanese transport loaded with British POWs from the capture of Hong Kong, … Continue reading →