From its first scene of dialogue, older Italian men with permanent scowls etched into their world weary faces mumbling to each other in a Brooklyn bar, Zarra’s Law reads like a mob movie made by someone who wants to imitate the genre but doesn’t speak a word of English. For a significant portion of the…
J. C. Chandor’s New York drama, A Most Violent Year, is a misleadingly titled film, as its timeframe only covers a month and there is very little physical violence. While the title references the exceptionally high crime rate of New York in 1981, the film itself is an intriguing study of different types of violence,…
Mike Leigh’s film Mr. Turner centers on the last twenty-five years of the life of the acclaimed 19th century English landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner. Though the film, with the strong assistance of cinematographer Dick Pope, succeeds in capturing the look and feel of the time as well as the essence of Turner’s beautiful landscapes and…
American Sniper is more intent on creating a hero out of Chris Kyle, reportedly the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history, than it is on being an unbiased character study; to be fair, the film was based on Kyle’s eponymous memoir, which wasn’t the most objective of the Iraq War either. So obviously it…
It’s been twelve years since Abby (Angela DiMarco) last saw her sister, Rebecca (Kate Alden), and she’s very nervous about spending time with her again. Accompanied by Abby’s fiancé Calvin (David S. Hogan), they travel to the family cabin in the woods to spread their mother’s ashes in the lake she loved. The weekend is…
Like “Horrible Bosses” with “Horrible Bosses 2,” “Hot Tub Time Machine” gets itself an unnecessary sequel too with, Hot Tub Time Machine 2. I must admit, however, this sequel seems to pack more laughs into it. The reason for that is obvious (other than Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and Clark Duke being funnier together than…
In case you didn’t find that “Interstellar” pre-chewed all of its own emotions for you enough, Wild, adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s memoir “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” is here to spoon feed you its own derivative “cold mush.” Wild follows Reese Witherspoon (“Mud”), as Cheryl Strayed, on an ambitious and…
