Corporate Animals movie review: work is hell
Corporate culture gets a delightfully twisted kick in the ass when a “team-building retreat” turns disastrous. As horror vies with comedy, the pitch(black)-perfect cast gets the balance just right.
reviews by year
Downton Abbey movie review: embarrassment of riches
Wherein the working class revels in servitude, and wealth and privilege are deserved. Deeply reactionary and unlikely to please anyone not already enamored of the show. I get Anglophilia, but really?
Phoenix (Føniks) movie review: but will she rise again?
This Norwegian family drama, tinged with fantasy and horror, depicts a teen girl’s emotional turmoil through fantastical, yet oddly pragmatic, reveries. Newcomer Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin is heartbreaking.
Hustlers movie review: with hearts of steel
GoodFellas, except they’re gals. A cinematic bonbon of delinquent deliciousness that easily wraps us up in charmed complicity. And the exquisite lack of a male gaze means it’s never salacious.
Mrs Lowry & Son movie review: portrait of the artist as an abused man
A study of the painter LS Lowry that, with sly whimsy and darkness, finds a universality of the creative psyche via the toxic relationship with his mother, who tried (unsuccessfully) to crush him.
It: Chapter Two movie review: it doesn’t float
A bigger misfire than its predecessor, and a waste of a great cast. Unsupportably overlong, with a feel-good self-care denouement that’s almost dangerous. The only terrifying thing here is the tedium.
Angel Has Fallen movie review: and it can’t get up
A sad retread of The Fugitive. Dumb, pointless, confused, full of contempt for its audience, and laughably unable to convince us that Gerard Butler is an acceptable stand-in for Harrison Ford.
Gwen movie review: a frisson of fright on the farm
Atmospheric mood — this is a dour nightmare in the stark gloom of 19th-century Wales — and a striking performance by Eleanor Worthington-Cox aren’t quite enough to sustain this near-horror film.
Brian Banks movie review: calling out corruption, mildly
There’s plenty injustice here to enrage the thinking, feeling citizen, but despite a passionate performance by charismatic Aldis Hodge, this docudrama is nowhere near incensed enough on his behalf.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 movie review: seeing red seeing Red
Painfully stupid faux-woke slapstick that wants to have its idiot male hero and its nods to feminism at the same time. Kids are listening, they are absorbing this garbage, and they deserve better. (now with a brief review of short “Hair Love”)
