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 […]
Glenn McDonald
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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 ★★
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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 […]
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Movie Review: Rogue One, the New Star Wars, Is a Dazzling Space Drama
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ★★★★Opening Thursday, Dec. 15 As the first in a series of spinoff movies set in the Star Wars universe, Rogue One is an experiment of sorts. If it succeeds, you can expect to see a new Star Wars movie in theaters pretty much every year until the end of […]
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Movie Review: Office Christmas Party Is Raucous, Rude, Lampoon-Worthy Fun
Office Christmas Party ★★★
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Amy Adams’s Authenticity Elevates Tom Ford’s Glam Pulp Fiction in Nocturnal Animals
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Opening Friday, Dec. 9 In the opening images of Nocturnal Animals, the new thriller written and directed by fashion mogul Tom Ford, obese naked women dance in slow motion, holding sparklers and looking directly into the camera. It’s a provocative way to open a movie. It also feels like the kind of empty […]
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