One wonders if there was something more than tobacco in the cigarettes used to burn the cue marks into the celluloid prints that filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson specially requested for the release of “Inherent Vice,” as it often seems that marijuana is part of the movie’s physical DNA. Protagonist Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a questionably-licensed […]
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The large number of reviews comparing Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is rather perplexing. Sure, both films tell stories involving intergalactic travel, but “Intersellar” is narratively straightforward where “2001” was enigmatic, and Nolan’s focus is on characters where Kubrick’s was on ideas. I do not say this to be dismissive
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“What do cosmologists worship?” Stephen Hawking’s (Eddie Redmayne’s) future wife Jane (Felicity Jones) asks upon first meeting him at a university-sponsored dance and learning of the science major’s distaste for religion, minutes into “The Theory of Everything.” “One single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe,” Hawking responds, noting that the equation has not yet
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The age-old (and perennially criticized) maxim of local TV news, “If it bleeds, it leads,” finds a fresh facilitator in Lou Bloom, the creepy-eyed, fast-talking protagonist played by an emaciated-looking Jake Gyllenhaal in “Nightcrawler.” Seeking work on the streets of Los Angeles, Lou is drawn to the eponymous profession, a colloquialism used to describe independent contractors
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“John Wick” is the first feature that Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have ever directed, but their two decades working as stunt coordinators in Hollywood clearly taught them an invaluable lesson that prepared them for the job: efficiency is everything when it comes to action filmmaking. Because Staheleski and Leitch make optimal use of the
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Perhaps the most surprising thing about the new documentary “Citizenfour” is that it does not require that the viewer have a positive opinion of its subject, the highly controversial NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, in order to be effective and vital. Make no mistake, the film hardly criticizes or even questions the ethics of Snowden’s extensively
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Just when all film animation was starting to look the same—one endless barrage of carefully focused-grouped CGI, designed to attract hoards of young American families—one finds renewed hope for the form in Laika’s latest elaborate stop-motion effort, “The Boxtrolls,” and Isao Takata’s “The Tale of Princess Kaguya,” which may be the most visually striking movie
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“Is perfection worth any price?” is the primary question posed by Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash,” the rare Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner that fully lives up to the mountain air hype. Set at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory, a Juiliard-esque Manhattan breeding ground for instrumental wunderkinds, the film follows drummer Andrew (Miles Teller) as he is berated
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On July 7, 2010, Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested at his South Los Angeles home in connection with the “Grim Sleeper” murders — at least ten, but potentially several more, homicides that occurred from 1985 to 1988 and then, after a long hiatus, from 2002 to 2007. DNA evidence connected Franklin to the murders, and an
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If you didn’t know going into “Blind” that the film marks the directorial debut of a longtime screenwriter— Eskil Vogt, who most notably penned the Joachim Trier-directed “Reprise” and “Oslo, August 31st”—you will rapidly develop a hunch for this as the film progresses. Reminiscent of the ensemble-based work of Paul Haggis, another scribe-turned-filmmaker, the film
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