Category Archives: Reviews

“Woodlawn” is a formulaic football film with some meat on it. It’s a faith-based “Remember the Titans” built on solid performances, the occasional feel-good (inspirational) moment and a script that lacks focus, if not ambition. Woodlawn was a newly-integrated high … Continue reading →

“The Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” takes the Living Dead/Walking Dead/Brain-eating Dead as seriously as this worn-out genre deserves. Which is to say, not very seriously at all. You poor stay-at-home shut-ins parsing every scene in that AMC soap … Continue reading →

We see the mistakes before the principals do. That’s what makes the news-story-gone-wrong drama “Truth” so compelling. The audience knows that the “60 Minutes” team investigating then-President George W. Bush’s shady service in the Air National Guard “doesn’t have it” … Continue reading →

Julia has been raped. She is shocked, humiliated, alone and traumatized. But she’s not going to just accept this, and a future of victimhood. We can see it in her deadened eyes as she washes the blood and horror off … Continue reading →

Think of “Bone Tomahawk” as Kurt Russell’s warm-up for his turn as the grizzled Western archetype/anti-hero of Quentin Tarantino’s Christmas gift — “The Hateful 8.” “Bone” is an unflinchingly-violent and stupidly long genre mashup. It’s Tarantino without all the anachronisms … Continue reading →

With “Steve Jobs,” his effortlessly brilliant portrait of the late Apple visionary, Aaron Sorkin once again upends the equation that points to the director as the most important creative force in a movie. Oscar winner Danny Boyle directed “Jobs.” But … Continue reading →

Meanwhile, over at io9, they’re trying to figure out how to dispense with the”Luke Skywalker problem.” And they’re wondering, at Jalopnik, why there’s a Subaru Brat half-buried in the sand, in one scene. Perhaps all will be clear Dec. 18.

There’s a Byronic dash to Tom Hiddleston on the screen, a brooding fatalism that in an earlier era might have made him a go-to romantic lead. But like Alan Rickman, he’s been defined by Hollywood as a villain. And like … Continue reading →

The record store chain Tower Records anchors a pretty good history of the rise and fall of the American music business in “All Things Must Pass,” a documentary by the actor Colin Hanks — son of Tom. Here was a … Continue reading →

“Bridges of Spies” is a Cold War thriller freighted with all the gravitas that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks can give it. Long, patient and chilling, it vividly captures a time in America and the feel of divided Berlin in … Continue reading →