’71 movie review (London Film Festival)
Remember this name: Jack O’Connell. He is magnificent in one of the most remarkable portraits of soldiering in recent memory.
2014 theatrical releases
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day movie review: not terrible
It’s strictly for kids, this very silly, mostly sweet tale of middle-school angst, with a few nonconformist hand grenades tossed in for good measure.
Dracula Untold movie review: it doesn’t suck
A solid action fantasy more elemental and visceral than I expected, thanks to the potent presence of Luke Evans.
Annabelle movie review: everything that is wrong with movies today
A yawningly empty movie, the epitome of brainless, heartless, soulless, shameless cash-grab corporate filmmaking.
Drive Hard movie review: end of the road
A deeply terrible would-be action comedy that looks, sounds, and feels like an 80s cheap and cheesy made-for-cable movie.
Gone Girl movie review: proof of wife
Ruins itself as even high-toned cinematic junk food when its justifiable cynicism morphs into something manipulative and dangerously disingenuous.
Believe Me movie review: those whom Jesus would mock
Not your typical Christian film: it dares to question the money-making machine that is evangelicalism. But it doesn’t dare question Christianity itself.
Advanced Style documentary review: life as art
There’s not much here beyond sass, but it is a genuine pleasure to spend time with women who are growing, changing, and living into their 70s, 80s, and 90s.
A Walk Among the Tombstones movie review: only mostly dead
Liam Neeson’s good performance only just elevates the general seen-it-before-ness, including a risible appropriation of women’s pain for men’s redemption.
The Equalizer movie review: recycled junk
Yet another artifact of the long stagnation of Hollywood, which has been remaking the same movies over and over and over again for the past 30 years.
