Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (87th Academy Awards) review
In the deeply moving “The Bigger Picture,” Daisy Jacobs uses a fresh and unique animation style to tell a story that is full of humanity.
2015 theatrical releases
Amira & Sam movie review: moving on from 9/11
A delightfully engaging, convention-busting slice of of-the-moment America that is far from the typical culture-clash romantic dramedy.
Kingsman: The Secret Service movie review: forgets its manners
I cannot recall a film that left me with such a sour taste in my mouth by its end. Does the movie deliberately defy itself with obnoxious intent?
Son of a Gun movie review: wholesale cinematic heist
Misogynistic, predictable, crammed with tonal shifts, and devoid of likable characters. Another young filmmaker has taken all the wrong cues from Hollywood.
Trash movie review: you know, for kids?
This isn’t a children’s movie… and yet it kind of is, too, with its odd mishmash of social realism, action thrills, misplaced comedy, and simplistic drama.
Ex Machina movie review: damselbot in distress
There’s nothing fresh or even usefully true in its cartoonish dichotomy about men, but this pseudo-SF flick will expound upon it with pretentious tedium.
Mortdecai movie review: stinking mishap
This painfully unfunny spoof of teddibly British nonsense couldn’t be less amusing if it were actually calculated to be totally laugh-free.
Taken 3 movie review: give it back
This is a movie as its own death wish. To call it cheap, lazy, and perfunctory grants it a dignity that implies there was another path it could have taken.
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death movie review: orphan blech
Thinks it’s hitting notes of subconscious dread, but it’s just swinging a sledgehammer of tropes and hoping one of them sticks. (Spoiler: None do.)
Black Sea movie review: pirates of the Crimea
An underwater heist of Nazi loot? Awesome. Submarine movies don’t get much better than this intensely suspenseful popcorn adventure.
