Triple 9 movie review: ordinary criminals
How did a genre-smashing director make a heist thriller so generic, with characters too unlikable to be engaging but not twisted enough to be intriguing?
2016 theatrical releases
The Witch movie review: casts a good spell… and then a bad one
Eerie and sinister, operating on a more psychologically incisive level than the typical horror flick… until it tosses it all with a cop-out of an ending.
How to Be Single movie review: more like how not to be single
Hollywood does not know how to make a movie about women that isn’t about the pursuit of romance. Even when women say they don’t want romance, they’re lying.
Zoolander 2 movie review: fashionably foolish
A tad dated and scattershot, but the messy package is inventively absurd… and unlike many Hollywood comedies, able to carry that absurdity to a silly end.
Oddball and the Penguins (aka Oddball) movie review: dogs and birds living together
Sweet, silly, charming. A true story about an unlikely canine-assisted project to protect endangered birds, goofily fictionalized to engage kids.
Bad Hurt movie review: family tied
Exhaustion of mind and body is the primary sentiment in this sensitively observed family drama, drawn with an intimacy that is palpable and uncompromising.
Deadpool movie review: origin story with a potty mouth
Callous, crass, unpleasantly smug. Supposes it’s being edgy because its protagonist swears a lot, but it’s like a child saying bad words just to be naughty.
Rams (Hrútar) movie review: brothers in farms
Exists on the spectrum between “fascinating and unclassifiably odd” and “could almost be a parody of an arthouse film except it’s too moving to be a joke.”
Tumbledown movie review: letting go of the past
A portrait of grief that borrows the conventions of romantic comedies. There may not be a lot of passion here, but there is plenty of pleasant zing.
Regression movie review: no thanks for the memories
Amenábar aims for a noirish X-Files vibe, but preposterousness rules this inert trudge that does absolutely no justice to a terrible real-life phenomenon.
