Familiar elements can be clichéd but also useful. Emphasize a particular trope too much and it becomes tired and tedious. Use a trope carefully, especially when connected to other tropes within a wider framework, and the various pieces can add up to a satisfying whole. The key aspect here is judicious treatment, ensuring that the…
When one hears of a group of adult men playing a 23-year long game of tag, one may intrinsically imagines an R-rated, raunchy comedy starring some of this decades most recognizable comedic faces acting like complete morons. While that is a valid assumption, the movie in question, Tag, also has a heart and is surprisingly…
For a film franchise that began in 1931 (with Boris Karloff in the original title role) and includes literally dozens of pictures, there are still some new things I learned from this latest edition (directed by Alex Kurtzman, “People Like Us”) of The Mummy. For instance, mummies and other otherworldly entities — even though buried…
Despite taking place largely in a single location, Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro’s film, Mine, manages to tell a varied story of life experiences, a story that touches on family history, personal regrets and misunderstandings, and even a subtle political critique of US militarism. Playing like a cross between “The Hurt Locker” and “127 Hours,”…
Last summer, director James Wan gave us a terrifying dramatization of a true haunting in Burrillville, Rhode Island in “The Conjuring” and scared the pants off summer moviegoers. Yet again, his quality horror moviemaking transformed into huge box office payouts and introduced the world at-large to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Renowned in the…
