Inspired by true events, Bilal: A New Breed of Hero tells the story of a real hero who earned his place in history after liberating himself and inspiring others to do likewise. This Arabic animated feature is intoxicating and beautifully drawn. The animation is textured and multidimensional, almost reminiscent of cutting-edge video game graphics. There…
In the midst of the devastation that was Hurricane Sandy back in 2012, New Jersey’s notorious play land, Atlantic City, was stripped to a bleak and torn terrain. First-time director Emanuele Della Valle uses this as a backdrop for his crime-drama film debut, Wetlands. The grey wasteland welcomes a once rogue Philadelphia cop, Babel (Adewale…
The DC Extended Cinematic Universe continues. In what seems to be the penultimate comic book movie of the year, David Ayer (“End of Watch,” “Fury”) has the task of selling an unknown quantity to mass audiences, while also following the path of the controversial “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” I have the good fortune…
While the subject of Concussion isn’t your typical Hollywood holiday fare, the film nevertheless touches many nerves, spotlights a terrific performance by Will Smith (even though he sports a mostly annoying Nigerian accent throughout) and takes the National Football League to task as the villain it was for many years as it seemingly ignored the…
While we are now awash in public expressions of hysteria directed towards Muslims, the voice of fear in American society has always been there in one form or another. Witness The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the forced removal of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II, and the on-going discriminatory laws against blacks…
Even bad guys can be “good.” And a lot of them can do more “good.” Or so that’s the thought a clandestine government agency has and why they dreamed up putting together a team of supervillains to do their bidding. What precisely they’ll be doing in the upcoming Suicide Squad isn’t yet known but it…
Paul W.S. Anderson might just be the very avatar of filmmaking mediocrity. Starting with the legendarily bad “Mortal Kombat” adaptation and working his way up a bit from there, he’s made a living off churning out genre films not awful enough to be memorable, but just bad in enough noticeable, glaring ways to make for…
