Grand Piano review: not enough notes
Builds up a good momentum of suspense only to throw it away on a rushed, unsatisfying ending, rendering all its preposterousness suddenly unforgivable.
suspense/thriller
The Double review: now you see him… again
A painfully funny odyssey of personal ineffectualness that is bitterly wonderful in how it revels in the decrepit horror of the everyday world.
Tom at the Farm review: shoulda stayed in the city
An overwrought pastiche of Hitchcock that makes less sense and renders its protagonist far less plausible the longer it goes on.
Cheap Thrills review: in debasement
The movie equivalent of a mean girls’ game whose only goal is humiliation. Also: a failed parable of the twistedness of the 1 percent.
Locker 13 review: no fresh hell
Nothing here is terribly haunting, but at least someone is trying to make something like a horror movie these days that isn’t about gore and torture.
The Borderlands review: Sunday worst
Finds absolutely nothing new in the supposedly spooky found-footage subgenre, unless all the typical haunted-house frights occurring in a church counts.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier review: politics in our peanut butter
Stuns me with its scathing commentary on the real world today, wrapped up in what is some of the most delicious, most comic-booky fantasy ever.
Paranoia review: low anxiety
Offers nothing by way of suspense, intrigue, or characters who rise even a little bit above the yawningly bland.
The Art of the Steal review: steal from the best
One of the most fun heist movies ever, bursting with snappy humor and a twisty cleverness that knows that you know that you are getting conned, too…
Omar movie review: trust no one
Palestine’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar is terse, tense suspense drama, and less overtly political than you might expect.
