The year is misleading; this film was shot nearly four years ago, but is only just now finding its way into a theaters for a few weeks. It went through development hell, switching directors, crew members and stars before Gavin […]
Continue reading »Category: Recent Releases
The 5th Wave (2016) ☆ ☆
I’ve been interested in this movie ever since I read Rick Yancey’s book a couple of years ago. It’s an ◊◊apocalyptic thriller depicting an alien invasion of Earth. The book was quite involving once I accepted its premise, and the […]
Continue reading »45 Years (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Quiet dramas with older characters dealing with age or coming to terms with events in their pasts often catch Academy Award attention, and such is the case with 45 Years, for which Charlotte Rampling has been nominated as Best Actress. […]
Continue reading »Brooklyn (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆
Movies like this don’t come along very often; Brooklyn is an old-fashioned romantic drama paced very deliberately, without the emotional peaks that moviegoers have come to expect. It is beautifully photographed and very well acted, particularly by Saoirse Ronan (pronounced Seer-sha) […]
Continue reading »The Big Short (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Making a movie about the financial crisis of 2007-8 seems tricky to me because there are no winners or losers — only losers. The American public lost immense amounts of money; the banks and government lost trust as well as […]
Continue reading »The Hateful Eight (2015) ☆ ☆
Hateful is apt; this film is often repulsive, too. I understand why Quentin Tarantino is worshipped in film circles, but I have never been a huge fan of his. On the other hand, I did like Django Unchained, so I don’t […]
Continue reading »Joy (2015) ☆ ☆
David O. Russell’s films often defy easy description, and Joy is no exception. It is a comedic biographical drama, although it is largely fictional. It posits that family connections are meaningfully important even when family members sue each other or cannot […]
Continue reading »Creed (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆
Like The Force Awakens, Creed is the seventh entry in a franchise that stretches back to the 1970s. Actually, the Rocky saga is one year older, having begun in 1976. And while this may sound like blasphemy considering how beloved the Star Wars adventures have […]
Continue reading »Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
Like most movie fans I too have been looking forward to the new Star Wars adventure, though perhaps less optimistically than most. For me only IV and V — A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back — are really good. And two out of […]
Continue reading »The Good Dinosaur (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
What if sixty-five million years ago the dinosaurs were not wiped out by a colossal asteroid strike? According to this Disney-Pixar tale, the Earth would now be dominated by dinos who farm and ranch. If the concept is a little […]
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