9 years ago
Theatrical (10 posts found)
Coming to a theater near you
“The Girl on the Train” A Silly and Ultimately Forgettable Thriller
"Didn't Jesus say, 'What is truth?" is an odd question for a NYPD detective to ask a potential suspect of a murder, but it's no odder than the cool-headed reply: "I think it was Pilate." Debating the essence of moral or objective truth, what it means to film t...
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Hell Is For Real In “Deliver Us From Evil”
Horror movies seem to always go through an awkward warmup phase in the first 10 to 15 minutes. The audience has to be willing to move past whatever initial preposterousness presents itself— monsters, ghosts, evil spirits, creepy whisper kids, and hackneyed car...
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“Premature” Too Sticky In Its Execution Despite a High Concept
It's no accident that every review of Premature refers to the film within the context of its relationship to Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day. The new film’s narrative similarity to the older one — in both, the protagonist finds himself reliving the same day witho...
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“Coherence” A Heady, Ambitious, Not Entirely Successful Low-Budget Genre Picture
Coherence is a heady, ambitious mind-fuck of an American independent feature, and not in the druggy stoned-out sort of way that most "mind-fuck movies" are, either. It’s low-budget and high-concept: eight friends gather in a room, a comet passes overhead, and ...
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“Earth to Echo” Crash Lands Your Childhood
See if this log line sounds familiar to you: a group of winsome young people discover an adorable alien entity, stranded on Earth and sought after by shady government spooks, and work together to help get the little critter home. Everyone learns a lesson. Hear...
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“Tammy” A Maddeningly Muddled and Inconsistent Star Vehicle for Melissa McCarthy
If there is one vexing problem at the core of American comedy in the 21st century worth talking about now--there's more than just one, of course--it's that too many actors, writers, and filmmakers are convinced that audiences will only accept sincere emotion i...
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“Nothing Bad Can Happen” Asks Deep Questions, But Remains Shallow
It isn’t any surprise that in first-time director Katrin Gebbe’s Nothing Bad Can Happen, anything bad that can happen, will. The film is a kind of endurance test, asking the viewer to witness a progressively more disturbing and more bleak cinematic world, all ...
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“Transformers: Age of Extinction” Represents The Antithesis of Fun
The tired-looking radio DJ looks at the equally tired audience, going through the motions of asking trivia questions so the people who've waited in line for hours to watch a movie about robots beating the tar out of each other and anything nearby can win a pri...
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“Yves Saint Laurent” An Expected Design Unworthy of Laurent’s Seal of Approval
I'm very glad to be one of those privileged viewers who have already seen both recent biopics about Yves Saint Laurent: Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent and Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent. This year's Cannes contender featuring androgynous and charismatic ...
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“The Pleasures Of Being Out Of Step” Misses A Beat Or Two
A record bathed in blue is spinning. The needle grazes overhead. It drops, and the scene is taken over by a blank black screen. A wilting jazz number plays over the unpainted canvas, and it’s the only thing to the audience has to grab onto in the darkened thea...
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