Zombie movies are so many light-years away from everything I care about that I faced World War Z with the kind of dread usually reserved for colonoscopies and root canals. But I am pleased to tell you that as zombie flicks go, this one goes down with fewer laughs and more artistry than most. The Read More
In the feel-good-with-a-tear-in-your-eye tradition of such polished, sentimental British films for grownups as Calendar Girls, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet, along comes the polished, predictable but endearing Unfinished Song, a touching and joyous movie with the rare benefit of featuring Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp at the top of their game. It’s about facing the inevitable consequences of age with dignity and grace, but the atmosphere is so relentlessly pleasant and life-affirming, even in life’s cruel third act, that the film is never depressing or maudlin, and sometimes it even makes you laugh. Read More
As trashy, pointless slice-and-dicers go, a grotesque chamber of horrors called Maniac has arty production values and features a creepy but sincere central performance by Elijah Wood (best known as Frodo in the Lord of the Rings cycle). But eventually it collapses in a gore fest of nauseating brutality that makes you wonder why they bothered at all. Read More
From South Africa, a better-than-average action thriller called Vehicle 19 pits blue-eyed, charismatic Paul Walker, star of the noisy, ridiculous Fast and Furious programmers (he’s currently leapfrogging this movie with Fast and Furious 6) against another car. The car loses, but only by a fender.
It opens with a police chase going the wrong way Read More
As a nauseating variation on the home-invasion theme, The Purge is as sickening as it is dreary. The year is too close for comfort (2022, to be exact) but the events are not as far-out as they seem. America has reached the saturation point of immortality, violence and destruction, and the government has passed a Read More
Just what we need now. Another movie about Superman. Man of Steel qualifies as one of those bloated, Byzantine summer blockbusters that is here today, gone by Labor Day. Now that I’ve seen it, clocking in at just under two and a half hours, I can file it under movies I never have to see Read More
The Prey is a busy French thriller that hits the ground running. With more action than one of the Jason Bourne programmers, it’s a strenuous stew of violent surprises and expeditious plot twists that force you to pay attention and stay glued to subtitles that move so fast you will undoubtedly feel a strong need Read More
Two years ago, when a pretentious, lunkheaded little thriller without thrills called Violet & Daisy premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, the wags were dragging out the old Jean-Luc Godard quote that all you need to make a movie is a girl and gun. This movie has two girls—and an arsenal of weapons Read More
Turning the great 2002 film Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes’s magnificent satire of Hollywood’s “women’s pictures” from the sanitized, repressed 1950s, into a stylized musical at Playwrights Horizons in liberated 2013 is a risky gambit. Despite the formidable talents involved, it turns out to be a big, flat disappointment. This is unsurprising. Dramatic movies that Read More
Touted as the Next Big Thing in horror, the creepy Soska sisters, Jen and Sylvia, are the writing-directing team that polluted the ozone with a numbing low-budget cult favorite called Dead Hooker in a Trunk. Their new shlockfest is American Mary, the sole purpose of which is to storm the barriers of public decency to Read More
