The Light Between Oceans is the sort of lackluster movie only really talented people can make—pedigreed, mounted with conviction and an earnest to a fault. Unfortunately, it is also a mawkish soap opera with little in the way of real substance, and one that…
Read More
As a disabled, Detroit Army vet beset upon by a trio of young burglars in Don’t Breathe, star Stephen Lang gives a maniacal performance, deftly balancing the physical with the cerebral. In the visceral thriller directed by Fede Alvarez (The Evil Dead), a reclusive…
Read More
The idea of playing Meryl Streep’s right-hand man in any movie must be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you get to work with the best; the other, try not to be eclipsed when she gives a performance as wonderful as…
Read More
Young stars Logan Lerman and Sarah Gadon create a palpable, doomed love in James Schamus’ superb screen adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2008 novel Indignation, and when I sat down with them recently in a bustling Chicago restaurant, they pretty much put me into the…
Read More
The modestly creepy Lights Out is a sometimes-effective horror picture with two things going for it—the introduction of an intriguing movie villain and a terrific performance from Mario Bello as a distraught widow being manipulated by a vengeful entity. In a movie all about…
Read More
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, is sheer lunacy and exactly what fans of the early 90s BBC series are looking for in a movie update—creator and star Jennifer Saunders and co-star Joanna Lumley returning to their boozy, cynical, iconic glory. And that’s about it. It…
Read More
The new Star Trek picture not so boldly goes where the franchise has gone, several times, before. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because director Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond is one great looking movie that manages to be sometimes fun, even as…
Read More
Arriving sight unseen on a wave of very bad will courtesy of fanboy trolls all riled up after a lackluster trailer earlier this summer, Paul Feig’s very clever Ghostbusters reboot should shut them down and satisfy anyone looking for a fluffy piece of summer…
Read More
Captain Fantastic, one of the year’s best movies, is also one of its most affecting. Written and directed by Matt Ross, Viggo Mortensen stars as the patriarch of a counterculture family living “off the grid” in the Pacific Northwest. In telling a story about…
Read More
A welcome surprise, The Purge: Election Year is a smart horror film informed by a sociopolitical context that gives it unexpected relevance. The third in the near-future series about the maintenance of social order via an annual, government-sanctioned crime spree, the new film strives—and…
Read More