While we know that some monsters are decidedly not lovable, the creature in Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, like many humans who roam the planet, is more of a lonely outcast seeking connection than a life-threatening presence. Performed by Doug Jones (“The Bye Bye Man”) underneath all the prosthetics, this monster…
Prior to Kong: Skull Island, there have been at least a half dozen feature films based on the monstrous King Kong character, including the original 1933 classic, 1962’s campy “King Kong vs. Godzilla,” the Dino De Laurentiis 1976 budget-breaker and Peter Jackson’s overlong and ambitious 2005 edition, among others. Despite the various incarnations, the plot…
The Garrett Hedlund Dilemma: How To Avoid Outlaw Clichés and Maximize Potential. Does the above text currently exist? No, not yet it doesn’t — but the world of cinema may demand it by 2015. The opening scenes of Andrew Levitas’ feature debut, Lullaby, have Mr. Hedlund mirroring the roles of “On The Road” and “Inside…
Just because there is a wealth of animated feature films out there does in no way mean all of them are worthy of our hard-earned bucks. Only a few are exceptional, a few more are decent, while most just float on the surface of pop culture for a few weeks as a true homage to…
I suppose I could just copy and paste my review of “Olympus Has Fallen” from two months ago and it would suffice to fill this space as well as describe the latest installment of another film about an attack upon the residence of the President of the United States. I could, but there are certainly…
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…
Director Andrew Dominik’s third feature film after “Chopper” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” 2012’s Killing Them Softly is a brutal tale of mob politics based on George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel “Cogan’s Trade.” On top of being a gritty gangster picture, the film provides a thoughtful commentary on America’s…
