“Are we clear? Are we clear?” . . . “Crystal.” — Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men” Based on the book by Lawrence Wright, director Alex Gibney (“The Armstrong Lie”) has delivered another hard-hitting documentary in Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, an exposé of the abuses of the…
If a scathing review isn’t enough to steer a viewer away from watching tripe like Diamond Heist (or “Magic Boys,” depending on what Google search results tell you), then perhaps the very idea of Michael Madsen (“Loosies”) as a former Chippendale dancer will act as the clearest warning. Seriously. Just picture Michael Madsen. Then picture…
Keishi Ohtomo’s new film, Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends, is the final in the live-action trilogy based on Nobuhiro Watsuki’s best selling manga series. In it, Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara, “The Secret World of Arrietty”) is on a mission of chaos and so he sets sail in his terrifying ironclad battleship to bring down the Meiji…
Cheese. Beloved by Wallace and Gromit; source of comedic consternation for George Clooney in “Burn After Reading;” key ingredient for Remy in “Ratatouille.” Hardly the most disturbing food to be portrayed on screen. Nonetheless, writer-director Darren Darnborough succeeds in making his short film about cheese sinister and sexy in equal measure, as well as exquisitely…
Judas Ghost, an indie British horror/fantasy inspired by Simon R. Green’s “Ghost Finders” series, feels more like a sequel than a standalone piece. This is to say, while watching it, one feels like what they are seeing would make far more sense — and have far higher stakes — if significantly more background information had…
In 1973’s “The Exorcist,” 1986’s “Witchboard” and 2014’s “Ouija” (among others), we learned that playing with a Ouija board can expose you to some really dangerous spirits. In countless other films (horror or otherwise), we learned that bored teenagers conjure up some pretty bad ideas to create excitement in their lives. In 2012’s new-to-DVD horror…
Stet, a troubled and angry Texas boy of eleven lives on the less affluent side of the tracks in Boychoir, Quebecois director François Girard’s (“The Red Violin”) feel-good story about a musically talented boy’s climb from adversity to self-acceptance. Written by Ben Ripley (“Source Code”), Girard’s first film in seven years boasts an outstanding cast…
