HALLOWEEN ENDS fulfills its promise to take the battle between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (unknown shape played by James Jude Courtney) to its limits. Boasting four writers, including director and purveyor of the franchise reboot, David Gordon Green, this excursion takes us, alas, into muddled waters. Myers, on the loose since… Read More »
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
One senses that the novel of the same name on which WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING possessed some lovely prose. Certainly, when the narration includes lines from the book, there is the dark poetic ring of classic Southern Gothic reverberating from the musings on death intoned by the adult version of Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones). Whatever philosophical… Read More »
THE BLACK PHONE
The horror in THE BLACK PHONE, and very effective horror it is, comes not primarily from the serial child killer on the loose in a suburban enclave of Denver in 1978. Played with a geeky, creepy panache by Ethan Hawke, The Grabber, as he is dubbed by the police and the populace of this all-American… Read More »
JOE BELL
A key moment in the fact-based JOE BELL comes early one as the titular character (Mark Wahlberg), a working-class man from a small town in Oregon, is told by his adolescent son, Jadin (Reid Miller) that he is being bullied at school for being gay. It’s two revelations, and Joe doesn’t miss a beat telling… Read More »
IT
The evil that lurks in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine, has nothing on the evil lurking in the homes of that community.
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE is everything that the perfect bromance flick should be, starting with the improbable but undeniable chemistry between stars Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson. Add a script that shows them off to best effect, with its wicked sense of the absurdity and suspense of the situations in which these two find themselves, and what… Read More »
The PROTAGONIST of Jessica Yu
Jessica Yu’s mind works in unconventional ways, hence her documentary, PROTAGONIST, which starts with the works of Euripides and ends up considering human nature in all its dazzling complexity. When I talked with her on November 29, 2007, the conversation took on why puppets are so potent, tracking down an ex-terrorist, and the gender differences… Read More »