When I browse social media I find a very common practice, which is also very curious. People ask about certain kind of movies to watch to suit a particular mood. Sometimes they want to cry themselves to sleep. Other times they want to be scared out of their wits. But if there’s a request that’s…
In case you’re wondering, the big moral or theme of Jay Baruchel’s Random Acts of Violence is that we should be careful when creating works that depict over-the-top violence, lest some unstable fan decides to give literal life to your most gruesome imagined scenes. At least that’s what I got out of this middling, piddling,…
“The real voyage of discovery lies in not seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes” — Marcel Proust Taking risks and taking responsibility can be two sides of the same coin but never seem to mesh in Thomas Vinterberg’s (“Far from the Madding Crowd”) comedy-drama Another Round, Denmark’s submission for Best Foreign Film at…
White Lie opens with protagonist Katie Arneson (Kacey Rohl, “Red Riding Hood”) shaving her head. Combined with the title, this opening scene may well prompt the viewer to form an initial interpretation. While this first impression may be proved right, the film subsequently goes in several unexpected directions, probing deep and prompting unexpected reactions. Katie…
Girl, written, directed and starring Chad Faust (“Better Start Running”), is effective when it comes to mood and atmosphere. The problem, however, is that there isn’t enough substance to make Faust’s stylish choices mean something, so this thriller comes across as more empty that gratifying. It begins with the titular “Girl” (Bella Thorne, “The Babysitter:…
On June 6, 1982, exactly 38 years after D-Day, roughly 60,000 Israeli troops and more than 800 tanks, heavily supported by aircraft, attack helicopters, artillery, and missile boats invaded Southern Lebanon, a country already involved in a decades-long civil war. Israel’s publicly-stated objective was to push PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) forces back 40 kilometers (25…
Simon West’s Skyfire is equal parts “Jurassic Park,” “Armageddon,” and, well, “Volcano”: A tireless, heart-pounding leap beyond such niceties as logic and character development into the well-trod terrain of super-duper action movie. And by that purple prose, I mean that it’s a damn fine movie to veg out to and just enjoy for what it…
