When a movie comes along that doesn’t behave like any of the thousands of movies you’ve already seen, well, that’s cause for celebration. Such is the case with ‘Downsizing’ from director Alexander Payne.
Glenn McDonald
Posted inFilm & Television
In The Disaster Artist, James Franco Does a Suspiciously Good Impression of a Bad Artist, but the Point Eludes Us
THE DISASTER ARTIST Opening Friday, Dec. 8 In 2003, a shady Hollywood creature named Tommy Wiseau wrote, directed, and starred in an independent film called The Room. It’s generally considered to be one of the worst films ever made, in both concept and execution. Still, in the years since its release, The Room has achieved […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Dickens and His Characters All Come to Life in the Pleasant Holiday Surprise The Man Who Invented Christmas
Opening Wednesday, Nov. 22 This pleasant holiday surprise is a heartfelt, clever British import that tells the story of Charles Dickens writing the classic yuletide novella A Christmas Carol. Similar to Goodbye Christopher Robin, the recent drama about A. A. Milne, The Man Who Invented Christmas purports to reveal the details behind a literary phenomenon. […]
Posted inFilm & Television
The Day of the Dead-Themed Coco Has One of Pixar’s Richest Fantasy Worlds and Weakest Stories
Opening Wednesday, Nov. 22 In its prime, Pixar was impossibly reliable, churning out original family films jammed with creativity, wit, and sophisticated emotional intelligence. Think Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, or WALL-E. We didn’t know how good we had it. Now Pixar is a subsidiary of omnivorous Disney, and its last two films (Finding […]
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: Goodbye Christopher Robin Is Too Squishy to Bear
Goodbye Christopher Robin ★★ Now playing There’s a certain kind of overproduced classic rock sound that makes me lunge for the car radio dial whenever it rolls around. The 1970s band Boston is an infamous example of this production style, which polishes every sonic texture to a smooth and unnatural sheen. When I hear a […]
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: The Paintings of van Gogh Come to Dazzling Life in Loving Vincent
Loving Vincent ★★★½ Now playing The historical drama Loving Vincent, concerning the life and death of Vincent van Gogh, is being billed as the world’s first fully painted feature film. Indeed, each of the 65,000 frames in this movie was hand-painted by a small army of artists over the course of seven years, with the […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Ex Libris Gave Us One Simple Idea: Put the Librarians in Charge of the Country
EX LIBRIS:THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Opening Friday, Oct. 6 Frederick Wiseman is an elder statesman of documentary filmmaking whose long-form works require a certain commitment from the viewer. His latest, a three-and-a-half-hour exploration of the New York Public Library system, might seem like a daunting proposition for a night at the moviesand it is. […]
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: It Is Plenty Scary, But It Also Has Heart
It ★★★★ Now playing Theodicy is a theological term that refers to the problem of evil as an active force in the world. More specifically, it’s an attempt to resolve the dilemma in many Western religions of how evil can exist in a universe supposedly created and governed by an all-powerful and benevolent God. It’s […]
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: Though Brightened by Its Lead Actor, Patti Cake$ Is a Sub-8 Mile Hip-Hop Contrivance
Patti Cake$ ★½ Now playing As Chuck D sagely warned us, so many years ago: Don’t believe the hype. Patti Cake$, the hip-hop drama that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, is getting a lot of frankly baffling hype as it rolls into theaters for a late-summer release. Fox Searchlight Pictures, the […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Crime Catastrophe Good Time Is a High-Voltage Power Play that Leaves a Neon Ache Behind Your Eyes
GOOD TIME Opening Friday, August 25 Ever have one of those late-night moments, after too many drinks and alkaloid derivatives, when you wind up in a truly bizarre situation and ask yourself, What impossible sequence of poor choices did I make to arrive at this specific place and time? For would-be bank robber Connie (Robert […]
