7 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“Z for Zachariah” Is Promising, But Frustrating
Recent post-apocalyptic films, from Zombieland to 28 Days Later have, to some degree kept their distance from religion—at least in an explicit sense. It's easy to link these world-weary genre pieces to theological themes in a more subtextual way, with very few...
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“Turbo Kid” Is Deliberately, Willfully Cheesy And Dumb
The post-apocalyptic future of Turbo Kid might be set in 1997, but the film’s stylistic sensibility is straight from the 1980s. That’s the point, of course; the whole film is intended as an ode to the campy gewgaws of ’80s pop culture. It’s a movie that’s abou...
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“Call Me Lucky” Is A Deeply Affecting Tribute To A Comic’s Comic
A hulking bear of a man with a handlebar moustache takes the stage, puffing on a cigarette and swigging from a bottle of beer, announcing: “So I’ve been on kind of a health kick lately.” The man is Barry Crimmins, the “comedian’s comic” who helped launch Bosto...
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“Digging for Fire” Is The Most Swanberg-ish Film Yet
With another year comes another Joe Swanberg joint about middle-class ennui. There are any number of reasons to roll one’s eyes at the prolific indie filmmaker’s latest, Digging For Fire—its blatant heteronormativity, adherence to traditional gender roles, uns...
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“Sinister 2” Is Numbing Instead of Frightening
An old house, precocious children, ghosts, and a troubled past haunting a family. At first glance and on paper, Ciarán Foy’s Sinister 2, the haphazard and poorly written sequel to the focused and contrastingly minimal horror flick Sinister (2012), has all the ...
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“Grandma” Is A Perfectly Nice Vehicle for Lily Tomlin
It’s been 27 years since Lily Tomlin last had a leading role in a film. Let’s not do that again, okay? In Grandma, the actress both embraces and subtly toys with the archetype of the irascible senior citizen. Her character, Ellie Reid, is liable to brusquely i...
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“American Ultra”, Like A Stoner, Has Trouble Focusing
The trouble with Mike Howell, the ambition-deficient convenience store clerk that Jesse Eisenberg plays in the middling American Ultra, is that he keeps receiving bad news while high. Bad news—like, say, the news that the United States government has sent high...
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“Station to Station” Is A Half-Assed and Artificial Hodgepodge
Station to Station has a reasonably intriguing premise: A train travels from New York to San Francisco, and over the 24 days this takes, various artists and musicians are brought aboard to contribute their thoughts on, and expressions of, creativity. Beck, Jac...
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“Youth” Is A Stripped-Down, Minimalist Thriller
Brothers Shaul (Eitan Cunio) and Yaki (David Cunio) Cooper are as close as two siblings can be: They watch movies together, they pee together, and, when their family’s financial chips are down, they kidnap and ransom people together. Israeli filmmaker Tom Shov...
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“Straight Outta Compton” Is Overstuffed And Exhilarating At The Same Time
In one scene, deep in the overstuffed second act of F. Gary Gray’s ambitious N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube (played by O’Shea Jackson Jr., the real-life fruit of Mr. Cube’s loins) goes to settle a dispute with his manager. The overcooked noodle...
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