Altogether, Hostiles is both sprawling and narrow, profoundly tense and equally mellow. That might sound like a film of contradictions — a message too lost in the majestic western landscapes. That’s not quite the case, though. Scott Cooper’s western carries the same slow-burn sensibilities as his 2013 down-home thriller, “Out of the Furnace,” which also,…
Sometimes a film comes along at the right moment, providing exactly the sort of inspiration one needs in difficult times. Such a film is A United Kingdom, the true story of Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo, “Queen of Katwe”) and Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”), an African tribal prince and London office clerk who married…
With now three adaptations of trashy page-turners under his belt, all of which have averaged out to pretty spotty final products, David Fincher seems to have his heart dead set on joining the cinematic pantheon of alchemists such as Brian De Palma and Stanley Kubrick who have successfully transformed lead into gold. However, the proper…
Suicide is no laughing matter. Neither is A Long Way Down, a movie that uses it as a jumping off point to bring together four people whose individual plights are supposed to draw sympathy and whose differences when combined are supposed to create laughable conflict. Of course, it’s not a comedy in the strictest sense,…
The “Cornetto Trilogy”, as people started calling it when the prospect of a third film reared its head and we all patiently sat through “Paul,” is surely something to be studied. If you don’t like “Shaun of the Dead,” people treat you like you’re some soulless homunculi poorly imitating human opinion, and with good reason….
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have teamed up again (finally) for Focus Features’ The World’s End. The double entendre title represents not only the end of mankind but is also the name of the bar at the end of a pub crawl, friends — Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan…
Take some of his more familiar action vehicles (“Minority Report,” “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” etc.) and add a dash of Bourne, “The Shooter” and even “JFK,” and you have a Tom Cruise film that, while certainly not his best, is quite effective, entertaining and keeps the suspense simmering until the last bullet has been…
