45 Years movie rating: green light
Keenly observed drama about a couple shaken by an unexpected blast from the past, featuring a career-best performance by Charlotte Rampling.
2015 theatrical releases
Pawn Sacrifice movie rating: red light
Yawningly dull Cold War chess drama squanders the charms and talents of Tobey Maguire (as Bobby Fischer) and Liev Schreiber (as Boris Spassky).
The Big Short movie review: first thing we do, let’s kill all the bankers
An infuriating yet entertaining look at the “other guys” of the 2008 financial crash. You will want to weep. While you’re laughing! *sob*
Concussion movie review: heads up
A quietly horrifying, solidly entertaining medical procedural that makes no bones about the terrible damage American football causes to its players.
Daddy’s Home movie review: floundering fathers
Clichés about good dads and bad boys go beyond the cheap and obvious and into the insulting. There’s nothing unexpected or even mildly amusing here.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie review: a new hope
Charts a path to a future that refuses to get mired in nostalgia. Yet all the Star Wars notes are here, remixed into a glorious new arrangement.
Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie (aka The Peanuts Movie) movie review: good grief
Of all the potential Charlie Brown movies Hollywood might have made, this might be the Charlie Brown-iest. That’s not necessarily a good thing.
Sisters movie review: women are messed-up people too
The just-right mix of wistfulness, snark, and painful personal growth makes this nonstop hilarious, with humor that gets women in a way movies rarely do.
Bleeding Heart movie review: sisters in waiting
There may not be much surprising here, but this is a smartly sensitive depiction of abuse and redemption that never descends into caricature.
Body movie review: lying lies and the lying women who tell them
Women’s friendships in dangerous situations are not something we see a lot of onscreen. But this ends up not really being about the women at all.
