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…
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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…
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The only truly exciting thing in Peter Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan is the sight of Alexander Skarsgard showing off his buff physique. Regardless of the viewer’s orientation, the impossibly good looking star’s clothing-challenged torso goes a long way in this stolidly square and…
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One of the most audacious movies in years, Swiss Army Man is many things—whimsical flight of fancy, poignant buddy movie, ingenious survival tale and very probably dexterous work of movie art. It is also a picture that will sharply divide audiences in its patent…
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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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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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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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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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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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“Octave”—a universal movie about making peace with past to understand the present—is an independent production helmed by first-time feature director Serge Ioan Celebidachi.…
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