Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven is set in a world where even having a drink requires vigilance. The film opens with Bartholomew Bogue’s (Peter Sarsgaard, “Black Mass”) hostile takeover of Rose Creek, a small mining community. This results in the deaths of countless settlers — most notably Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer, “The Nice Guys”), whose…
“A fulfilled dream is a disappointed dream” — Amos Oz In a quiet moment in Natalie Portman’s (“Knight of Cups”) beautiful and poetic A Tale of Love and Darkness, a mother says to her young son, “If you have to choose between telling a lie or insulting someone, choose to be generous.” When the boy…
When I first saw the trailers for When the Bough Breaks, I was excited. It looked like “Obsessed,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” or “Single White Female,” except with fewer white people (something most movies these days could benefit from). When I first sat down in the theater, I was still excited. The pacing…
It’s tough to make a religious film in 2016. Not that they aren’t produced anymore, far from it, but that their demographic continues to diminish. An increasingly secularized temperament in the world today means the topic of religion or spirituality in cinema becomes discussed in ever more derisive ways. For audiences, it was difficult to…
“It’s been a while since New York had news this good — especially with an airplane in it.” What if your instincts indicated you were correct, but training, technology and computer evidence proved you were wrong? How would you deal with it? Those are the questions in the newest Clint Eastwood-directed film, Sully, the biopic…
The conflict between satisfying one’s emotional needs and doing the right thing is spotlighted in Derek Cianfrance’s (“The Place Beyond the Pines”) intense drama The Light Between Oceans. Set in 1918, the film is based on M.L. Stedman’s debut novel, a work of sparse and understated beauty. Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender, “X-Men: Apocalypse”), a traumatized…
Well, the sixty-something iconic martial arts wonder Jackie Chan certainly has not entirely lost his cinematic A-game when it comes to his trademark kinetic-style kicks and punches that worldwide movie audiences have come to embrace in the legendary performer’s adventurous chop-socky film career. Sure, Chan’s acrobatic skills in comically kicking butt and taking numbers may…
