The stakes have been raised so many times with event flicks that, when approaching one, hope is always tempered with experience about what to expect, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson. With AVENGERS: ENDGAME, though, hope wins out. The spectacle is everything it should be, and the story, of necessity a meandering thing, is nonetheless sustained by… Read More »
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
For sheer value-for-money, you can’t top AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. It’s pure entertainment with an endless parade of the kind of whiz-bang special effects, not quite sloppy sentiment, and a constant barrage of the quips and banter that define grace under pressure in the Marvel Universe. Plus, pretty much everyone from the MCU finds his or… Read More »
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR asks the cinematic question “What would happen if we took a whole passel of superheroes from the Marvel Comic universe and tossed them together into one film?” But wait, what if we pitted them against one another over a fundamental difference of opinion about ethics, and then added a dash (or… Read More »
BROOKLYN’S FINEST
BROOKLYN’S FINEST is an object lesson in situational ethics played without the comforting buffer of impersonal hypothesis. The eponymous cops in question are neither heroes nor villains, rather they are basically decent guys pushed to the limits that have warped their perceptions of right and wrong as considered moment by moment. Not for them is… Read More »
IRON MAN 2
In IRON MAN, there was the inestimable delight in discovering the giddy elan and surprising depth that Robert Downy, Jr. brought to the titular role and his alter ego, Tony Stark. In IRON MAN 2, there is an equal delight in discovering that far from a retread, Downey has discovered even more subtle nuances to… Read More »
HOTEL RWANDA
There is a scene in HOTEL RWANDA where Nick Nolte as a member of a U.N. peacekeeping squad, is explaining with more than a trace of righteous indignation to Don Cheadle, as the Rwandan trying to save 1200 of his fellow citizens from slaughter, exactly why the rest of world is going to sit by… Read More »
REIGN OVER ME
Sooner or later a film was bound to make 9/11 a glib plot point and with REIGN OVER ME, so it has come to pass. The good news is that this is one-half of a terrific film. The bad news is that Adam Sandler is in the other half. The worse news is that 9/11… Read More »
TALK TO ME
“Wake up, God damn it!” is how TALK TO ME begins and that’s exactly what is going to happen to its lead characters, the people in their orbit, and the entire city of Washington D.C. The story may be formulaic, albeit based on actual events, but stars Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor take charge of… Read More »