Huzzah for FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM! This look at another part of the magical universe of Harry Potter and Hogwarts, penned by J.K. Rowling specifically for the screen, expands the mythos with the sort of wildly whimsical originality that we have come to expect from her. Added bonus, with no book as… Read More »
PRIDE AND GLORY
PRIDE AND GLORY offers passionate performances in a story that is a series of letter-perfect clichés. The topic is police corruption grafted onto the innernecine struggles of the Tierneys, an Irish-American family of New York City cops with a thorny problem of malfeasance in their midst. The thorn is Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell), the cop… Read More »
TOTAL RECALL
TOTAL RECALL is a pleasant revisiting of Philip K. Dicks short story, I Can Remember It For You Wholesale that also, and with a whole heart, acknowledges its cinematic predecessor of the same name. While that version was plastic and kitschy, not unlike its star, Arnold Schwartzenegger, this one takes a grimmer view of a… Read More »
DEAD MAN DOWN
DEAD MAN DOWN begins and ends in a blaze of gunfire. In between if focuses on the smoldering anguish of two people longing for revenge, and fighting their better natures in order to achieve it. Though rife with elements that will get it categorized as an action flick, this film aspires to be a psychological… Read More »
SAVING MR. BANKS
I have three problems with SAVING MR. BANKS, only one of which springs from knowing how much of the story has been Disney-fied. A feature film is not real life, even when based as this one is on actual events if for no other reason, as someone once said, real life doesnt have to make… Read More »
RECRUIT, THE
Its such a neat idea for a flick — an intricately plotted tale of spies playing both sides against the middle with a gazillion twists and turns and no one, especially the audience, quite knowing where the middle is until the end. And one day, if were good, well get a flick like that. For… Read More »
PHONE BOOTH
One of those wise old Greeks, perhaps it was Socrates, said that the unexamined life is not worth living. And in PHONE BOOTH, there’s a psycho with a gun who’s taken that bit of philosophy way too literally. This being a Joel Schumacher film, he of FLATLINERS and BATMAN and other flights of high-flown fancy,… Read More »
S.W.A.T.
Did or does S.W.A.T. the television series have the sort of cult following that made a film version inevitable? Are there conventions of kids who dress up in ersatz S.W.A.T. uniforms and stage mock rescues? Are there Hondo worshipers? A frightening thought, but not as off-putting as sitting through this film. The passel of writers… Read More »
THE NEW WORLD
Terrence Malick, an auteur in every sense, has both written and directed just five films in his since 1969. As such each new work, staggeringly original in its scope and in its approach, is a cause for eager anticipation. Each finds new truths and new meanings in events that had seemed familiar, combat during World… Read More »
MIAMI VICE
My cat has coughed up hairballs that make more sense than MIAMI VICE. At least a hairball serves a vital physiological function that makes the feline’s existence more pleasant in the long run after an irritating 30 seconds or so. Michael Mann’s big screen version of the uber-hip 80s television series is just irritating, and… Read More »