One thing you can say about the fourth collaboration of Spanish filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra and his avenging one-man army lead Liam Neeson: They certainly know how to revisit a movie formula and belabor it to death. In the stylish yet tepid transport mystery/thriller The Commuter the concocted suspense is needlessly derailed for yet another exploration…
And with that, the war on Valentine’s Day is over. It took two films, but finally Christian (Jamie Dornan, “Anthropoid”) shows off the smarts they said made him capable of running a company: Using just one ring rather than many cables to bind his love, Anastasia (Dakota Johnson, “How to Be Single”). Fifty Shades Freed…
“When sky and sea came together like two lips touching, for that’s no small thing, no. To have lived through one solitude to arrive at another, to feel oneself many things and recover wholeness.” — Pablo Neruda As Americans we love the idea of ordinary people rising from obscurity to become heroes celebrated for their…
Written and directed by Brian Crano, Permission is a unique take on modern romance that deserves more attention than it’s gotten, particularly for its wide array of truly likable characters. Set in Brooklyn, the film examines a long-term couple who become interested in expanding their experiences beyond each other, and honestly considers the consequences of…
Mary and the Witch’s Flower, based on the English book “The Little Broomstick” by Mary Stewart, is the first female-led action action fantasy film exploding into theaters in 2018. Originally released in Japan in 2017 this new movie, engineered by some of the directors and animators behind classic cartoon adventures such as “Spirited Away,” “Howl’s…
Anthologies are a kind of a risk/reward endeavor. It’s a great way to keep a series fresh and innovative, especially as age goes against it, but iconography can often ruin those kind of plans. Remember when “Halloween” was supposed to be an anthology series? Not only did “Halloween” become too popular for its own good,…
Those dastardly backwoods are calling again. Based on the well-received 2011 novel by Adam Nevill, David Bruckner’s film, The Ritual, is a competent British-made horror which, after a so-so opening act, gradually mutates into something quite watchable and intense. It starts as a group of old college buddies meet up to plan a reunion trip…
