If ever you were looking for a movie where every day, conversational dialogue is turned into a form of deep, philosophical lecturing, then stop your search now, The Counselor is it. What you’ll also find is it’s a fresh, innovative, suspenseful film that, while suffering at times from a slow, disjointed tempo, has an intriguing…
Cinematically speaking, there are few places more moving, more honestly heartbreaking than on the big screen with a lone character struggling to survive. To be lost, stranded in a desolate place is to provide a narrative hook that is immediately intimate and resoundingly relatable. As modern movies like “Cast Away,” “127 Hours,” and “Life of…
Last Vegas, despite the clunky title and a tried-and-true plot, has plenty of funny moments, due mostly to the charm and enthusiasm of its aging cast and the script itself, by Dan Fogelman. But is it inspiring? A laugh-out-loud comedy? Well, no and no — but it still mostly works, at least as well as…
Despite Saudi Arabian officials refusal to budge on the rules concerning male-only driving and threatening the arrest of women activists who are planning a protest, repressive laws and customs directed at Saudi women are changing slowly. Women may now ride bicycles, can sit on the national advisory council, and a decision has been made by…
Irving Zisman is an 86-year-old horny, incompetent asshole and probably the last person on Earth you’d want to care for your child. So of course having him care for a kid is at the crux of Bad Grandpa, as the octogenarian has been charged to accompany his eight-year-old grandson across America to be with his…
A dream-like atmosphere pervades David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, a nostalgic tone poem that hints of Terrence Malick with its sweeping vistas and soft voice-overs. Though the title card that opens the film says, “This was in Texas,” there is no delineation of time or place, and it is left to the viewer to…
Because no one knows Sissy Spacek. That’s the reason Carrie, the classic movie of what happens when bullying meets a hormonal telekinetic, was remade for audiences of 2013. Not because the 1970’s version by Brian De Palma had open, irritable flaws that diminished the Stephen King novel from which it was adapted that needed to…
