WAKEFIELD Opening Friday, June 9 In the realm of pop sociology, the term “ghosting” has developed several connotations. As an update of expressions like French Exit or Irish Goodbye, it means slipping out of a party without saying your farewells. It has an even newer application in the dating world, where it means breaking up […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inFilm & Television
About Baywatch—We Have This Theory on Actor Zac Efron’s Inexplicable Success
Baywatch Opening Thursday, May 25 So I have this theory about Zac Efron and his inexplicable success as an actor. My bet is that, on his eighteenth birthday, as he graduated from Hollywood’s child-star factory, he descended to a secret chamber deep below the sound stages of Burbank. There he took part in unspeakably vile […]
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Movie Review: Alien: Covenant Gets Psychosexual In a Bloody, Baroque, Deeply Weird Story
Alien: Covenant ★★★★ Now playing It’s generally acknowledged that the creature in the Alien franchise is the scariest monster in all of science-fiction cinema. Based on original designs by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, it’s a triumph of sinister design—a Freudian nightmare of biomechanical sex and death. Alien: Covenant, the latest installation by veteran sci-fi director […]
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Film Review: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
KING AUTHUR: 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 Round […]
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Movie Review: In King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Guy Ritchie Gets Medieval on Our Collective Asses
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 […]
Posted inCulture
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 […]
