It’s only right that a revenge story with a savage punch line should also have a savage sense of humor. And so it is with PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, a tale of rage against the patriarchy in which the testosterone-heavy are not the only problem, and one woman’s refusal to let a crime go unacknowledged makes… Read More »
MOM AND DAD
The refrain of “I’ll kill you” or “My mom (dad) is gonna kill me” are a familiar part contemporary familiar discourse in even the most loving of homes. Writer/director Brian Taylor has taken that commonplace and spun a tale that is both wickedly twisted and unnervingly satisfying. The exactly proportions of those two feelings may… Read More »
THE HOUSE
If anyone could have saved THE HOUSE, it would have been Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell. Theirs is a deliciously insouciant sense of comedy delivered with deadpan sincerity that can make the most of anything tossed their way. And so it is with THE HOUSE, a raggedly written story with a creaky plot that no… Read More »
BAYWATCH
One comes away from BAYWATCH wondering many things, none of them good, one of them why Spongebob Squarepants had to be involved. Based on the television phenomenon that swept the world a few decades back, this cinematic leap is neither faithful to the original, nor is it a loving spoof of same. It fails to… Read More »
SNATCHED
Amy, we hardly knew ye
LIVE BY NIGHT
LIVE BY NIGHT is so sumptuously photographed that it can almost make up for its shortcomings. Based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, it has weathered its translation by becoming a slight story heinously overblown. It also suffers from too many false endings. So many, in fact, that I can’t vouch… Read More »
WAR DOGS
The problem with WAR DOGS is that it refuses to decide what it wants to be. Jittering uncertainly between farce and melodrama, it achieves a few moments of sublime absurdity as it satirizes the business of war by hewing to, and exposing the facts of, said endeavor’s economics. Yet, when it decides to tug at… Read More »
OUR KIND OF TRAITOR
John le Carré writes espionage stories in which the action is cerebral and the suspense comes from a keen observation of each protagonist’s character. Thus, the stakes in OUR KIND OF TRAITOR involve much more than the list of names that will topple those in power. They involve the people caught up in the intrigue… Read More »
LEGEND
LEGEND is not the first biopic of the notorious Kray Brothers to hit the big screen. The identical twin brothers, who were both vicious gangsters and pop-culture celebrities in the 1950s and 60s, were portrayed by the Kemp brothers, Gary and Martin as Ronnie and Reggie respectively in 1990’s THE KRAYS, a film that spent… Read More »
STONEWALL
STONEWALL is a sudsy, underwritten, overwrought effort that is less than the intended tribute to the unsung heroes of the eponymous riots that accelerated the gay liberation movement into the social mainstream. Instead, it is a melodrama of truly epic proportions told with every cliché of gay life as lived in less enlightened times, and with… Read More »