All Film Reviews

A River Runs Through It (PG)

Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It is set in the early 1900’s “at the junction of great trout rivers in Missoula, Montana” against the backdrop of the Bitterroot Mountains in the northwest of the state. It would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful setting for such a story, and it is to the […]
No Rating

Fight Club (R)

Note To Readers: This review contains a frank investigation of a perverse film, and necessarily must describe some of the perverse ideas of the film. Given the lasting import and influence of the film, the editor commends it to readers who are old enough to have seen the film. Younger readers who have not seen […]
Snowpiercer (R)

Joon-Ho Bong’s Snowpiercer starts with an intriguing premise: the world has frozen solid after a global warming experiment gone wrong, and all of humanity now inhabits a high-tech train that perpetually circles the earth. (Train wreck jokes would, perhaps, be too obvious.) Snowpiercer squanders this premise on a hackneyed tale of the struggle between the […]
The Rover (R)

Jesus thanked His Father for hiding the truth from the wise and understanding and revealing it instead to little children. David Michôd’s The Rover takes its cues from this fundamental dilemma, painting an intimate picture of a relationship between one who is wise and understanding and one who is – if not in body, at […]
Marie Antoinette (PG-13)

“Are we there yet?” asks Marie sleepily from the backseat of her carriage. Her royal Austrian entourage has just pulled up on the French border for a customs inspection which makes even today’s customs inspections look conservative. It’s a child’s question, and that’s fine. Marie was only fifteen when she departed the Hofburg Palace for […]
Transformers: Age Of Extinction (PG-13)

You can learn a lot about Michael Bay by the numbers. In the last twenty years, he has directed eleven films, and all but two were released in June or July. All his films but the first, Bad Boys, top the two hour mark, and more than half exceed two and a half hours. The […]
Jersey Boys (R)

It is unfair to condemn a pop music biopic for its family resemblance to most any other entry in the genre, since the history of one pop act’s rise and fall is more or less the same as another. Clint Eastwood’s Jersey Boys is by turns a light-hearted, then solemn account of ‘60s hitmakers Franky Valli […]
Stalingrad (R)

When we were discussing Stalingrad, a friend referred to it as “Saving Comrade Katya.” To an extent, his comparison to Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan works. Both are violent films set in turning points of World War II, both focus on a small group of soldiers, and both attempt to depict the war’s brutality while maintaining […]
Maleficent (PG)

The Walt Disney Company, 20th century curator of childhood-born romantic prejudices and sundry other idiocies, has a bone to pick. With itself. In the latest adjustment of the Grimm’s work, Disney takes itself to task for all the delicious animated lovey-dovey nonsense they packed into kid’s heads back in the 50s and 60s. That prince’s […]
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (PG-13)

All superhero reboots have the same binary job description: act like their predecessors never existed, and then be consciously better than their predecessors. 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man accomplished both in spades. Andrew Garfield brought more charisma to the title role than the departing Tobey Maguire (who has about as much of that vital essence as […]
How to Train Your Dragon (PG)

According to ancient British legends, King Alfred wasn’t a big fan of the Vikings. He spent several years of his reign ousting the Danish warriors, who burned monasteries and killed unarmed monks. Good thing the real Vikings didn’t train dragons. The warriors of How to Train Your Dragon, a 2010 animated hit, bear practically no […]
Psycho (R)

Only one horror story has ever been written and it is Oedipus the Tyrant by Sophocles. Freud had the story wrong, although he was closer than Rene Girard. Peter Leithart’s account of Oedipus in Heroes of the City of Man is one of the more penetrating I have ever read and the one I prefer […]
The Quiet Ones (PG-13)

More than other genres, horror movies invite us to pay attention to filmmaking itself. We watch the edges of the frame, tense up along with the music, and hold our breath for the slightest footfall or door creak. As a quick exercise, spend some time watching trailers on the iTunes movie trailers page . You will […]
Edge of Tomorrow (PG-13)

“I always say, ‘If I could start my marriage over, I would do this or that differently.’ But I’m flattering myself. My marriage starts over every day, and there are things I don’t do differently. Everything starts over every day.” I said something to this effect at confession several months ago. I often feel as […]
To the Wonder (Not Rated)

It begins at the Wonder, La Merveille, Mont-Saint-Michel in France to be exact, with Neil and Marina at an early edge of love, leap or let go is the question. She cavorts along the coast as the tide swells and he, as implacable as the sea, follows; whether entranced or temporarily entrapped in her orbit […]
All About Eve (Not Rated)

All About Eve opens with an award – the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achivement, addressed to Miss Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), placed squarely in the center of the frame. Describing the ceremony, Addison DeWitt (an unforgettably sardonic George Sanders, elsewhere described as a “venomous fishwife”) dryly announces, “Minor awards are for such as the […]
Million Dollar Arm (PG)

Whenever a movie is sold as a “feel good” movie (inevitably the “feel good movie of the year”) I feel my heart grow cold despite the assured “heartwarming” results. It’s even worse when it’s based on a true story. Often this sort of fare is as savory as the organic pellets soaked overnight to be […]
Short Term 12 (R)

It’s very easy to be dismissive of a movie like Short Term 12. It’s an indie drama that tells a story about troubled teenagers, which is the sort of film that draws adoring critics like ants to a watermelon rind. The fact that Short Term 12 rises above melodrama at all is almost a miracle in itself, but […]
For All Mankind (Not Rated)

Given the political significance of the American space program, one might be excused for raising a skeptical eye at the notion the Apollo 11 ascended to Luna herself “for all mankind.” However, director Al Reinert seems to have had little interest in politics after reviewing more than six million feet of film shot by astronauts […]
Godzilla (PG-13)

By this point, further cries and moanings over the seemingly endless procession of reboots and remakes of too many franchise pictures must themselves begin to have the air of reboots and remakes, but I beg your forbearance nonetheless as I add just a few more paragraphs of reproof. Godzilla, starring Ken Watanabe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and […]