Hunt for the Wilderpeople

A sweet delight from New Zealand, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, from writer-director Taika Waititi, is an endearing coming of age movie about a non-traditional relationship that creates a new definition of trust and family. Nice message, nice picture and a pair of lovely performances.…

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The Neon Demon

Cheap thrills dressed up as very high art, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon is the year’s most outrageously entertaining movie, a stylish exercise in depravity from which you cannot pull yourself away for a spellbinding two hours. It’s pure cinema about a soiled…

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The Shallows

You’ll want to book a Sandals Resort package, minus the snorkeling, after seeing The Shallows, featuring comely Blake Lively in a bikini menaced by a Great White shark for 80 or so well-directed minutes.  Expert technique masks a scant survival story in Spanish director…

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The Conjuring 2

There’s really only one reason that a horror film doesn’t work, and it isn’t lack of originality or a reliance on genre tropes.  If the fear factor is missing, then forget it. James Wan, the director of Saw and Insidious, knows damned well how…

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Me Before You

A catastrophically confused movie, Me Before You peddles a questionable message about living with disabilities and then tricks us into believing in redemption through a cornball love story before leading us to a tragic foregone conclusion. It works hard to gain empathy and make…

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