Schmidt and Jenko are back, and we should all rejoice. 22 JUMP STREET starts out every bit as funny as 21 JUMP STREET was, and then keeps upping its game. Once more co-written by co-star Jonah Hill (Schmidt), it is an inspired bit of whip-smart silliness that refuses to take itself seriously. On the other… Read More »
SWEET SIXTEEN
With ironically titled SWEET SIXTEEN Ken Loach has finally taken his considerable filmmaking talents and used them to make a movie, not a broadsheet. Instead of a screed that thumps its audience over the head with a black-and-white world view of good and evil as in CARLA’S SONG, this is a working class tragedy of… Read More »
PARTY MONSTER
For some people, reality is a choice and they would rather not. Why be an office drone when you can be a star, even if it’s only for a night and in a dress made of toilet paper? This was the thinking behind the Club Kids scene and the backdrop for one of New York’s… Read More »
THE ZODIAC (2006)
It is the stuff of gazillion urban legends, two kids making out in a car on a deserted country road only to be attacked by a psychopath. Only this is true. The psychopath was THE ZODIAC, and he started his killing spree in 1968 and, depending on whom you talk to, continued on for another… Read More »
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
Aaron Eckhart should have been a much bigger movie star than he is by now. He’s got the dazzling good looks and the killer charisma required, but after several first-rate performances in little films (THE COMPANY OF MEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS), fine journeyman’s work playing second-fiddle to powerhouse female leads (Julia Roberts’ boyfriend in… Read More »
CHILDREN OF MEN
In a here-and-now where the primacy of children is given ample lip service by proponents of any and all social issues, it is refreshing, and not a little thought-provoking, to see in Alfonso Cuaron’s CHILDREN OF MEN, based on the P.D. James novel of the same name, a world in which this is actually the case.… Read More »
FAY GRIM
FAY GRIM dances through so many levels that while one viewing is sublime, several are a giddy revelation, each one more so than the last.
HITMAN
Sometimes all it takes is one great image. From there the fertile imaginings of a visionary filmmaker can build a story that is a compelling, even wondrous, cinematic experience. Alas, that is not the case with HITMAN. The image is of a striking bald guy (Timothy Olyphant) in a well-tailored black suit striding about with… Read More »
THE WHISTLEBLOWER
War is hell, but keeping the peace can be trickier. The clear-cut lines of who is the enemy and what it out of bounds blurs when the official fighting stops and, as in the former Yugoslavia, outsiders are sent in to keep the factions from continuing the hostilities. Such is the case of THE WHISTLEBLOWER,… Read More »
BURIED
It would be easy, and a huge mistake, to dismiss BURIED as a stunt film. Sure, Ryan Reynolds spends the entire 94 minutes of the running time buried underground in a box, but such is the imaginative take on the subject by screenwriter Chris Sparling and director Roderigo Cortes, that the struggle of one confined… Read More »