King Arthur: Legend of the Sword ★★★ Now playing In the would-be franchise starter King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, director Guy Ritchie gets medieval on our collective asses by twisting Arthurian legend into a British caper film. Hunky Charlie Hunnam is our hero, Jude Law is the baddie, and the future Knights of the […]
Glenn McDonald
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Movie Review: Land of Mine Is Both a Classic War Film and a Powerful Anti-War Statement
Land of Mine ★★★★ Now playing In the final months of World War II, German forces buried more than 1.5 million landmines on the western beaches of Denmark. Germany believed that the Danish shore was one of the probable landing spots for an Allied invasion. After Germany’s surrender, Danish officials commandeered four thousand German POWs […]
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Director Marc Webb Squeezes New Life Out of Old Story Beats in Gifted
GIFTED1/2 Now playing So this happens sometimes at the movies: a film comes along and does things you’ve seen a hundred times before. You know you’re being worked over emotionally, with cinematic tricks and techniques that have been around forever. But the story soars anyway, and you walk out genuinely moved and entirely satisfied. Such […]
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Movie Review: Do Not Go, in Style or Otherwise, to Zach Braff’s Going in Style
Going in Style ★Now playing Going in Style, the new “comedy” from “filmmaker” Zach Braff, has a familiar setup: three old friends, played by veteran actors in their golden years, run into trouble and reunite for one last caper. In this case, the actors are Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, and Michael Caine. The caper is […]
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Movie Review: Life Wants to Be Alien SO. BAD. But It’s Just Another Creature Feature.
Life ★★ ½ Now playing As a B-minus movie with an A-plus cast, the sci-fi horror specimen Life is the latest in a looong line of films that recycle the same imperishable plot: a group of explorers in a hermetically sealed environment encounters a hostile creature, which sneaks through the facility and picks off the […]
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Movie Review: Table 19 Goes for Grown-Up John Hughes But Spreads Out a Banquet of Winces and Cringes
Table 19 ★ ½ Now playing Science has yet to identify the precise biomechanical workings of the cringe. A function of the sympathetic nervous system, it’s an involuntary muscular reaction that occurs when we see or hear something embarrassing or unpleasant. Watching Table 19, the new ensemble comedy starring Anna Kendrick, I’m pretty sure I […]
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Movie Review: Jordan Peele Crosses Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with a Racially Charged The Stepford Wives to Brilliant Effect in Get Out
Get Out ★★★★ ½ Now playing The go-to synopsis for Get Out, the brilliant new horror film from writer-director Jordan Peele (Key & Peele), is that it’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner crossed with a racially charged update of The StepfordWives. That’s about right, but Peele’s game-changing film is more than that, and it’s the […]
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Movie Review: A Dog’s Purpose Rolls Over and Plays Dead Under Its Own Heart-Tugging Weight
A Dog’s Purpose ★★ Now playing Commercials for the new family film A Dog’s Purpose give away the entire premise and plot, right up to the final scene. The movie follows the various embodiments of a reincarnating dog as he lives and loves his people over the course of multiple lifetimes. If you’re a dog […]
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Movie Review: Family Is a Slippery Thing in Mike Mills’s Loopy, Lovely 20th Century Women
20th Century Women ★★★★ Opening Friday, Jan. 20 The slippery concept of family is at the heart of director Mike Mills’s loopy, lovely, and largely autobiographical new film, 20th Century Women, a story that aches with bittersweet memory. It’s 1979 in the Southern California enclave of Santa Barbara, and fifteen-year-old Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) is […]
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Animated Fable A Monster Calls Earns Some of Its Tears but Cruelly Squeezes Out Others
A MONSTER CALLS Opening Friday, Jan. 6 Since I became a parent, I’ve found that films that place kids in peril, or linger on their suffering, have a disproportionate effect on me. If the story is honest and artful, I’m a wreck and can barely see the screen through the blur of my tears. If […]