Blackhat ★★ Now playing With surveillance concerns, security breaches and foreign hacker attacks tumbling though the news cycle pretty much constantly these days, it would seem that Michael Mann’s new thriller, Blackhat, is well-timed to reflect our cultural anxieties. And it would be, I suppose, if the movie were really about hackers. But despite the […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inFilm & Television
Unbroken should be required viewing for anyone who thinks torture is justified
UNBROKEN Opening Dec. 25 UNBROKEN, director Angelina Jolie’s adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling nonfiction chronicle, tells the true story of Olympic athlete Louie Zamperini, who endured an incredible series of traumas during World War II. After surviving for 47 days adrift on a raft in the Pacific, Zamperini suffered for two-and-a-half years in a brutal […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Into the Woods puts stage magic on the screen—but not always seamlessly
INTO THE WOODS Opening Dec. 25 Sometimes, if you shift gears, you can turn a perplexing movie into a pleasurable one. This is the case with INTO THE WOODS, Disney’s much-hyped adaptation of the beloved Stephen Sondheim musical, which happens to have recently finished a run at Playmakers. If you enter these woods looking for […]
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Tim Burton directs the incredible true story of a kitsch-art con man in Big Eyes
BIG EYES Opening Dec. 25 By all indications, the actor Christoph Waltz is a perfectly nice guy in real life. On screen, however, he projects a creepy menace that resonates on some ambient frequency. That makes him wrong for the lead role in BIG EYES, director Tim Burton’s otherwise engaging film based on the real-life […]
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Movie review: Wild is like Eat Pray Love with more sex and drugs
WILD Opening Friday Here is Cheryl Strayed’s plan as she sets out to walk the 2,600 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail over the course of three months: “I’m going to walk myself back to the woman my mother thought I was. I’m going to put myself in the way of beauty.”
Posted inCulture
Movie review: Hunger Games turns dark in the series’ latest installment
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1★★★½ Glenn McDonald With The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1, Hollywood’s reigning teenage-wasteland franchise brings the darkness, spiraling the story into some new, interesting and heavy territory. It’s a war picture, basically, with Jennifer Lawrence’s reluctant heroine Katniss Everdeen assuming the mantle of armed resistance leader. In the troubled empire of Panem, […]
Posted inCulture
Movie review: Patriot or traitor, Edward Snowden is human in Citizenfour
Citizenfour★★★★½ Now playing A well-designed two-hour documentary may be our single most efficient format for telling a complex story in a manageable amount of time. When assembled by a skillful filmmaker, the images, sounds and textual elements don’t just add up to more than their sum—they become exponential, delivering a kind of fractal storytelling experience. […]
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A drum prodigy and a sadistic mentor in Whiplash
WHIPLASH Opening Friday Is the chance to achieve artistic genius worth any price? That’s the question at the heart of Whiplash, a bold and bracing indie drama featuring one of the year’s best performances.
Posted inCulture
Movie review: Black holes and bombast overcome most of Interstellar’s plot holes
Interstellar ★★★
Posted inFilm & Television
Movie review: Laggies is a rom-com about the essential tyranny of adulthood
LAGGIES Opening Friday
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