The Night Before movie review: twas the bromance before Christmas
It’s bogged down by too many derailing tangents, but the three appealing leads have a wonderful chemistry, and it gets close to the spirit of the season.
reviews
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.
Krampus movie review: holiday horror
There’s no mythological weight behind this flick’s anti-Santa. This is more like a standard slasher horror, its baddie on a rampage of arbitrary carnage.
Victor Frankenstein movie review: monster mush
A riff on the Hollywood conventions of a story we know very well already, with little new to say. James McAvoy’s mad scientist is fun to watch, though.
Janis: Little Girl Blue documentary review: the painful soul of the music
A compassionate, intimate unpacking of the legend of Janis Joplin that reveals the troubled influences on the force-of-nature singer she willed into being.
Sherpa documentary review: go tell it on the mountain (LFF 2015)
Captures a burgeoning revolutionary spirit among a people who have been ignored, when they aren’t being taken advantage of, for too long.
Christmas with the Coopers (aka Love the Coopers) movie review: familial torture
Glossy Hollywood automatons sleepwalk through family dynamics full of forced quirkiness, excruciating cuteness, and phony emotion. Absolutely cringeworthy.
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.
Spooks: The Greater Good (aka MI-5) movie review: game of moles
A ridiculous, rote action thriller, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining, crammed with all sorts of macho emoting and spy nonsense as it is.
Creed movie review: the boxing ring of truth
Feels natural and organic, not forced by the dictates of movie franchises. A smart, engaging, unsentimental portrait of male friendship and male emotion.
