When it was released three years ago, “The Last Exorcism” was a genuine surprise. What was advertised as a standard-issue found-footage horror movie for teens was actually a smart mockumentary about a variety of social issues, like blind adherence to organized religion and the camera’s ability to attract narcissists. As I wrote in my review, […]
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When a movie as painful to endure as “Identity Thief” comes along, it’s tempting, as a critic, to seek vengeance against the filmmakers by exploding with hyperbole. I would undoubtedly feel a bit better about having been cinematically tortured for two hours if I could unload an outraged “This film epitomizes everything that’s wrong with contemporary
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Pablo Larraín, the writer/director of “No,” shyly introduced his work to the audience at last October’s New York Film Festival by mumbling a few thanks into the microphone and quickly taking a seat. Having seen the filmmaker’s prior two efforts, “Tony Manero” and “Post Mortem,” which make up a spiritual trilogy with “No,” I was
And the nominees are… “Kings Point” (Sari Gilman, USA) – It’s been a strong year for movies about what happens to us when we grow old, between “Amour,” the live-action short “Henry,” and this documentary short in which director Sari Gilman follows five residents of the eponymous Florida retirement community where her grandmother lived. It’s
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And the nominees are… “Adam and Dog” (Minkyu Lee, USA) – You’d never guess that this, the most aesthetically beautiful of this year’s nominees, was animated entirely in Photoshop, as the images have the appearance of a stunning blend of oil paints and watercolors. The world created in “Adam and Dog”—a painterly, ‘Scope version of
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And the nominees are… “Death of a Shadow” (Tom Van Avermaet, Belgium) — The 20-minute length doesn’t allow for much explanation of the mechanics behind the intriguing science-fiction-like concept, which involves the collection of the shadows of the dying, so we basically just accept it and focus on the characters’ emotions. These ring true through
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Bruce Willis is an actor whose effort is visibly proportional to his enthusiasm for the material. When he believes in the work, it shows; consider “Pulp Fiction,” “12 Monkeys,” “The Sixth Sense,” last year’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Looper,” and, of course, the first four “Die Hard” films. Now, think back to some of his lesser
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The best argument for “Escape from Planet Earth,” the latest children’s animated film to roll off Hollywood’s assembly line, is that it’s a mostly painless experience for adults. That’s really all a parent can ask for if they want to take their young kids to the movies more than the two or three times a
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While the name Nicholas Sparks and the word “masterpiece” will never be uttered in the same breath, there are two films (“The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember”) that prove that the schmaltzy romance novelist’s paperbacks can be adapted into modestly affecting melodramas for the screen with the right talent. Well, some of his paperbacks,
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Zombies are in. Slow zombies, fast zombies, historical zombies, futuristic zombies, Nazi zombies, stripper zombies — you name an adjective, there’s probably been a zombie version of it in film, television, and/or video games. As a result, it’s starting to seem like there isn’t anywhere new for artists to go with the cannibalistic, reanimated creatures,
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