The Final Member review: collectile dysfunction
The world’s only penis museum is no joke, but there’s plenty funny (and enlightening, and poignant) in this sweet portrait of a man dedicated to completing his life’s work.
reviews by year
The Love Punch review: below the belt
The jokes are as creaky as the aching bunions and bad backs onscreen, but Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan are incandescent together.
The Sea review: the sands of time are dun-colored
Ciarán Hinds engages in some pointlessly dour Irish brooding at the beach.
Tracks review: hopefully lost
Romantic in the grandest sense, a visceral and hypnotic experience of idealistic aspirations set against the desolate beauty and danger of the Outback.
The Other Woman review: sex and the infidelity
We need an equivalent term to “Uncle Tom” for a woman — in this case, screenwriter Melissa Stack — who participates in Hollywood’s systematic hatred of women.
Fading Gigolo review: Twilight for middle-aged men
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film that looks more like the filmmaker’s midlife-crisis wish-fulfillment fantasy than this one.
Joe review: the violence inherent in the system
Cage finally gets away from his shouty, cartoony madmen, but it’s hard to shake the sense that this was laboriously constructed around him as a showcase.
Transcendence review: AI yai yai
The neo-luddite attitude is bad, but this commits a far worse sin: it’s dull. If only it worked as a schlocky pile of pulp nonsense, that’d be something…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 review: black and white and web all over
Suffers badly by comparison with the cogent, witty Avengers flicks. This feels like a campy Saturday-morning cartoon left over from the 1970s.
Locke review: riding in a car with a boy
We say things like, “Oh, I’d watch that guy read the phone book,” and this is almost that. Except it really is absolutely riveting, and that’s no joke.
