Blackhat movie review: broken code
This mysteriously misbegotten flick should be a gritty 10-hour miniseries so it would have time to explore its ideas and potentially fascinating characters.
2015 theatrical releases
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter movie review: Minnesota odd-yssey
Weirdly funny and weirdly sad, one woman’s slo-mo nervous breakdown becomes an exercise in pathos that is unforgettably poignant.
Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine documentary review: portrait of the symbol as a young man
An almost unbearably heartbreaking documentary rehumanizes the LGBT icon… and makes him newly tragic all over again.
Fifty Shades of Grey movie review: neurotica
A charm-free hero with control issues and a passive, fretful heroine have coy and tediously vanilla pretend-sex. This is meant to be erotic?
Old Fashioned movie review: how would Jesus date?
Old-fashioned is right. Like how the Taliban is old-fashioned. Behold some pretty despicable passive-aggressive othering of women in the name of “respect.”
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts (87th Academy Awards) review
An extraordinary group of films concerned with corralling confusing and conflicting human experience at emotional borderlands.
Shaun the Sheep Movie movie review: sheep in the city
Charming in that gloriously detailed Aardman way, but with its simple slapstick humor, it’s strictly for the littlest tykes.
Jupiter Ascending movie review: princess drearies
Sees no need to engage metaphor or dispense with cliché, so when you haven’t seen it before, you can’t believe what you’re seeing. And not in a good way.
Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts (87th Academy Awards) review
Three of the five nominees are about women, and it’s hardly a surprise that their fresh perspective results in stories that are new and original.
The Devil’s Violinist movie review: all the wrong notes
A hilariously histrionic depiction of 19th-century superstar violinist Niccolò Paganini’s rise to fame, far more Monty Python than Mozart.
