In Theaters
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A Player that Struts and Frets: Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (R)
“Birdman is the thing with feathers,” to adapt a line from Emily Dickinson to describe Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). The Birdman perches in the soul of Riggan Thomson, played by the indomitable Michael Keaton, and functions as hope, the spirit rising above the quotidian. There is also a […]
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Chappie (R)
Whither Blomkamp? Chappie is the third feature-length film of South African director Neill Blomkamp, and, sadly, a disappointing attempt to reheat most of the ingredients of his acclaimed debut District 9. In that thoughtful and naturalistic variation on the familiar aliens-invading-earth premise, Blomkamp revealed a considerable gift for evoking pathos with the least likely characters: […]
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Kingsman: The Secret Service (R)
With a film as superficially slick and fun as Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, it’s mightily tempting to view the film on an accordingly superficial level, judging it based on its shallow pleasures and surface flash – and certainly, there are manifold pleasures to be enumerated here. One could list off the film’s many […]
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Kingsman: So Much Action, So Few Returns (R)
Colin Firth has a reputation for playing the underdog. He is an urbane actor and generally makes intelligent decisions in the roles that he plays. But, since his role as Mr. Darcy in the Pride and Prejudice miniseries 20 years ago, he has made a career of portraying a man in an uphill battle, sometimes […]
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Where the Violent Bear It Away: A Most Violent Year (R)
In a decadent society, decency is a sin, and it is one of the few that is unforgiveable. This is a lesson learned by Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), the borderline hero and heating oil entrepreneur at the center of J. C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year, although he insists on learning the hard way. Adversity is […]
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Blackhat (R)
Blackhat begins with a sinister shot from outer space of the whole world connected. Thin blue lines spiderweb across the globe as the camera zooms in on one particular power plant in one particular country. The camera continues to zoom through a computer screen in the power plant and zip past bands of cables – […]
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The Imitation Game (PG-13)
One of the forte subjects of the famous French philosopher Rene Girard is mimetic desire – that is, mankind as a species adept at imitation. In fact, imitation is our chief means to learning. But when imitating, humans also imitate other’s desires, which conclusively leads to desiring the same things. Girard refers to this negative rivalry […]
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Unbroken (PG-13)
I tend to be forgiving of film adaptations from a book because film is an entirely different medium. Movies rarely hit the emotional and philosophical depth of a well-written novel, but they can provide stunning visuals and an entertaining way to relive a good story. For me, the guidepost to a good adaptation is this: […]
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Grimm Tales: Into the Woods (PG)
The woods of classic fairytale lore are the locus of secrets, danger, and freedom. The wolf knows he is safe to stalk Little Red Riding Hood behind the trees; the witch trusts that no one will find Rapunzel’s tower in its depths. Fast forward several hundred years, and Disney cartoons have scraped much of the […]
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Go Down, Moses! Exodus: Gods And Kings (PG-13)
The oracles concerning the life of Moses are so perplexing and uncanny that even accomplished preachers bungle over them from time to time, and so someone at 20th Century Fox should have probably realized early on that handing them over to the director of G.I. Jane wasn’t the best move. Some might say Ridley Scott’s best work […]
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Big Hero 6 (PG)
A group of misfits band together to stop an evil, mysterious villain and become an unlikely team of superheroes. No, that wasn’t a one-sentence description for this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy; it’s a one-sentence description for this fall’s Big Hero 6. Big Hero 6 focuses on child prodigy Hiro (Ryan Potter), who is encouraged […]
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Whiplash (R)
“I’d rather die drunk and broken at 34 and have people at a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remember who I was,” says Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), the protagonist of Damien Chazelle’s sophomore feature film Whiplash. Andrew wants to be a great drummer – like […]
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Interstellar : Do Not Rage (PG-13)
“Do not go gentle into that good night,” says the old scientist. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” These lines, repeated throughout Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar, are used to signal a fight for survival. Humanity is on the verge of starvation; abuse has broken the earth and blight has wiped out all crops […]
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Nightcrawler: It’s A Free, Free, Free, Free Country (R)
Early in Nightcrawler, Lou Bloom sits with his back against a palm tree, staring at a white sand beach under the California sun. Behind him, a bicycler dismounts and chains up his bike. Bloom smiles. The scene cuts to Bloom pawning the same bike. In any other film, such a scene would stretch our credulity. […]
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Fury (R)
The most memorable character in Fury is Don Collier, or “Wardaddy,” the weathered commander of a tank – the eponymous Fury – in the final days of World War II. Wardaddy (Brad Pitt, exceptional in a role that nevertheless falls short of his best work) is a man of contradictions: he emanates grim, detached pragmatism […]
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John Wick: A Lot Of The Old Ultraviolence (R)
My qualms began with the poster. The show hadn’t even started. The film is called John Wick and the tagline is, “Don’t set him off.” The latest Keanu picture sits at the end of a long line of pun-titled actions films, like Max Payne or The Dark Knight. The title brings together the identity of […]
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The Judge (R)
Light is a universal symbol of truth. Though we associate it with warmth and openness, light carries a burden of pain as well. Stare into a floodlight and your eyes will water. Lasers—concentrated beams of light—can burn and cut as well as repair. Sometimes a light is so blinding that it obscures all but itself. […]
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Gone Girl (R)
For a film which depicts one of the more grotesque murders in recent cinematic memory, the most terrifying moment in Gone Girl is nothing more than the film’s hero being asked a few seemingly mundane questions about his missing wife by a pair of bored cops. Shortly before noon, on his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick […]
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No Good Deed (PG-13)
No Good Deed is a genre piece pleasantly confident within its limitations. Its direction, script and acting all equally disclose an unimaginative professionalism that bears comparison to any number of films of a similar mold. While it must be admitted that the break-in suspense flick is hardly a genre with many permanent classics (the Audrey […]
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Calvary (R)
Collective guilt might be unjust, but sometimes it is inevitable. That, at least, is one of the conclusions to be drawn from Calvary, John Michael McDonagh’s drama about the clerical abuse scandal which, ironically, does not feature a single frocked predator. This is because Calvary is not about the bad priests who caused the scandal, but about a single good priest left to deal with its consequences.