Film Reviews
Category“Jem and the Holograms”: Family fun for everyone (except the neglected younger sister)
Jem and the Holograms is a movie about magical transformations, but really, the most incredible transformation we see is a cheaply animate..
“The Martian” movie: A smug motherfucker, marooned
“That didn’t have a thing to do with the triumph of the human spirit,” my girlfriend Dana observed as we walked out of a screening of The ..
“Black Mass”: Johnny Depp rivets in a South Boston requiem
Two brothers grow up in South Boston. One becomes a prominent politician, while the other turns into the state’s (excuse me, the commonwea..
“Pawn Sacrifice”: A Bobby Fischer movie that’s somehow not about chess
As Cold War proxy-battle lore goes, the story of Bobby Fischer’s 1972 chess match against Boris Spassky is darker and more ambiguous than ..
“Mistress America”: How can a movie that’s only 84 minutes long be so boring?
I keep giving Noah Baumbach chances. He once made movies that engaged me (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding), and he continue..
“Diary of a Teenage Girl”: Sex, drugs, and comics in bicentennial America
You wouldn’t guess that a movie about an affair between a 15-year-old girl and her mother’s 35-year-old boyfriend would turn into the feel..
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”: An action movie that doesn’t break a sweat
Sick of summer blockbusters? So is Guy Ritchie, apparently. His Man from U.N.C.L.E. proceeds about its popcorn-movie business so laconical..
“The Stanford Prison Experiment”: California demeaning
One theory has it that fictional stories appeal to us because they allow us to test out hypotheses regarding how we’d respond to various s..
“Trainwreck”: Amy Schumer for the masses
Let’s cut to the chase and call Trainwreck what it is: a romantic comedy. Yes, those are real tears rolling down Amy Schumer’s face as she..
“Terminator Genisys”: 1984 called, and it doesn’t want its killer robots back
This year marks the 31st anniversary of the original Terminator movie, and the 30th anniversary of another time-travel classic: Back to th..
New “Madame Bovary” movie won’t replace your Cliffs Notes
The new Madame Bovary feels like a film made to disprove the aphorism that a picture is worth a thousand words. The approximately 170,000 ..
“I Believe in Unicorns”: This mythical creature’s a real dickhead
At one point in I Believe in Unicorns, a young man cradles his girlfriend’s face in his hands and says, “You’re so beautiful.”
“And sma..