Spotlight movie review: all the pope’s men
An elegy for old-school reportage and the people who pursue it, and a journalistic procedural with a snappy rush of urgent discovery and consequence.
based on fact
Captive movie review: prisoner of boredom
So inept a film, so bland and monotonous, that it fails even to serve as the blatant ad for the certain Christian motivational book it would appear to be.
90 Minutes in Heaven movie review: God-awful
So deeply terrible that it will make you question the existence of God. The dialogue is the least natural I’ve ever seen in a film not made by Ed Wood.
The Revenant movie review: an extreme walk in the woods
High-toned body horror that emotionally and tonally starts on one note and never deviates from it, which becomes rather exhaustingly dull.
Joy movie review: a mess to be mopped up
Even the miscasting of Jennifer Lawrence takes a backseat to the forced quirkiness, which David O. Russell cannot get his cast on the same page with.
Pawn Sacrifice movie rating: red light
Yawningly dull Cold War chess drama squanders the charms and talents of Tobey Maguire (as Bobby Fischer) and Liev Schreiber (as Boris Spassky).
The Big Short movie review: first thing we do, let’s kill all the bankers
An infuriating yet entertaining look at the “other guys” of the 2008 financial crash. You will want to weep. While you’re laughing! *sob*
Concussion movie review: heads up
A quietly horrifying, solidly entertaining medical procedural that makes no bones about the terrible damage American football causes to its players.
In the Heart of the Sea movie review: here be monsters (and whales)
Solid, old-school man-versus-nature adventure melodrama, with a simmering green awareness; rollicking, smart, breathtaking, and sobering.
The Letters (aka Letters from Mother Teresa) movie review: utter nunsense
A fatuous argument for Mother Teresa’s sainthood; credulous and willfully ignorant, and disregards everything about her beliefs that was nasty or skeptical.
