Although Jason Statham is a charismatic performer, he is not seen to best advantage in this routine action film, desultorily directed by Dennis Gansel. Statham first essayed the role of hit man Arthur Bishop five years ago in The Mechanic, a […]
Continue reading »Month: August 2016
Indignation (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
This movie surprised me in a way I did not expect: it qualifies as a Korean War film. That fact will not impress many people, I suppose, but it is the first one I’ve found in a decade. Others are […]
Continue reading »Anthropoid (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
World War II was the defining event, if it can be labeled such, of the twentieth century. Nearly every country in the world became involved in one way or another, with some suffering horribly. One of those countries was Czechoslovakia, […]
Continue reading »Ghostbusters (2016) ☆ ☆
Another film that did not need to be remade, re-booted or re-anythinged is Ghostbusters. The surprisingly massive hit from 1984 has aged pretty well thanks to its wit, its goofy charm, Sigourney Weaver’s spectacular legs and a terrific use of popular […]
Continue reading »Ben-Hur (2016) ☆ ☆
This is a film that has already been made three times — in 1907 and 1926, silent spectacles that I have yet to see, and the famous 1959 version that won eleven Academy Awards, and which I feel is a […]
Continue reading »Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
The formula for this movie is seemingly not a promising one. A drama about a woman whose singing is decidedly flat, and who is enabled to give concerts only because she is rich, seems to have the deck stacked against […]
Continue reading »Finding Dory (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
While Finding Dory is not the wonderful film that Finding Nemo was some thirteen years ago, it is a thoughtful follow-up which accentuates many of the same themes that its predecessor did. It’s all about finding one’s home, finding one’s way in […]
Continue reading »Suicide Squad (2016) ☆ 1/2
Superhero movies used to be about people (Batman), or mutants (X-Men), or aliens (Superman) with extraordinary powers who try to do some good in the world. But now we’re in an anti-superhero culture. Formerly all-American superheroes now beat up on […]
Continue reading »Café Society (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
Writer-director Woody Allen just keeps chugging along like the Little Filmmaker Who Could, churning out an average of one film per year since 1969, beginning with the hilarious Take the Money and Run. His style has changed over the years; slapstick […]
Continue reading »Bad Moms (2016) ☆ 1/2
Yes, when political correctness becomes hypocrisy or lunacy, it should be ridiculed. Bad Moms lampoons the idea that a woman who chooses to work is then, by necessity, a poor mother. But think about that for a moment. Working mothers […]
Continue reading »