9 years ago
Reviews (10 posts found)
“14 Blades” Could Use Some Sharpening
Whether he's beating up bad guys with his fists, beating up bad guys with his feet, or beating up bad guys with an umbrella, Donnie Yen is one of the most endlessly watchable martial arts performers of his time. Throw him in any era and he fits right in; put a...
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“Coldwater”: Impressively Executed, Until It’s Not
In Coldwater, indie visual sensitivity and genre intuition unexpectedly meet. The effect is, surprisingly, a rather classic, but skillfully – and tastefully, despite the graphic content - executed drama that tracks the painful blossoming of maturity during a c...
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“Life After Beth”: Brains, Brains, & No Brains
Watching Life After Beth feels an awful lot like watching square pegs being jammed into round holes. On paper, all of the film's bits and pieces make sense: a dead girlfriend, her insufferably pining boyfriend, shady parents, a case of inexplicable resurrectio...
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“The Expendables 3” A Smooth, Predictable Remix of Past Action Films
"We're like children with arthritis,” Sylvester Stallone joked during a press conference in Cannes earlier this May. No offense to the youth, but not many of us “kids” would not be able to do half of what the kick-ass grandpas are doing in The Expendables 3, t...
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“Dinosaur 13” A Middle-of-the-Pack Doc That Could’ve Been So Much Better
Usually, when a mainstream documentary focuses on a subject that's less-than-uplifting, the filmmakers are able to find some angle through which they can put an optimistic stamp on the story. At the very least, they might toss up some title cards with links to...
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“Ragnarok” A Middling, Wannabe “Indiana Jones” Adventure
The new Norwegian film Ragnarok wants very badly to be a modern-day Indiana Jones story, but ends up feeling slightly more enjoyable than the SyFy Movie of the Week. ("Better than Sharknado 2!" may not be a desirable pull-quote, but there you are.) Its heroic ...
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“The Trip to Italy” Puts Too Much On Its Plate
The Trip, which began life as a 6-episode BBC series and was subsequently cut down to a feature for festival and home video distribution, was a study in contrasts. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon played lightly fictionalized versions of themselves as two actors co...
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“The Giver” Gives Us Nothing New
When Lois Lowry's The Giver came out in 1993, its story of a repressive post-apocalyptic dystopia in the context of the setting for a young-adult novel was a fresh idea. But now, in a media landscape dominated by such stories (seriously, half of all YA books n...
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“Step Up All In” Brings Economic Reality to the Dance Floor
Step Up All In begins by breaking down what makes dance so important to people. It’s like a runner’s high, an exhilarating movement of mind, body, and soul. Images of various dance styles cycle on-screen as the audience hears the movie’s leading man describes ...
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“The Dog” A Flashy But Gratuitous Documentary About The Inspiration for “Dog Day Afternoon”
Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning film Dog Day Afternoon tells the story of Sonny Wortzik, a man who robs a bank in Manhattan to pay for his lover's sex reassignment surgery. The film is based on the true story of John Wojtowicz, a soldier-turned-criminal who becam...
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