In the past, he’s been Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, and an animated fox. Now he gets to be Batman. Robin Hood, that legendary outlaw of yore, has recently returned to the big screen for his routine re-imagining in Robin Hood and this time he has more in common with the caped crusader than the Lincoln…
Choosing a third remake of A Star Is Born, a classic rags-to-riches movie that has a history of attracting legendary talent from Fredric March to Judy Garland, as your directorial debut is a risky move, but it’s one that Bradley Cooper pulls off quite well. The actor’s rise from TV sidekick to cool comic relief…
Mexican cartels are bad and Emily Blunt is good. These are the main takeaways from the generic sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which serves only as an overlong, unnecessary reminder of how gripping Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 predecessor was. This continuation of the story that follows government agents embroiled in the drug war jettisons Blunt’s…
Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “Sicario” and “Hell or High Water,” Wind River is a murder mystery about the death of a young Native American women, found frozen in the snow. Part character study, part police procedural, and part political statement, it is a deeply disturbing film that contains graphic…
A B-actioner with grade-A action seems like a cinematic contradiction, but what better way to describe “John Wick” and its sparkling new sequel? The cheesy one-liners, stock villains, thin plot, and characters built entirely on an actor’s presence all put John Wick: Chapter 2 in B-ish territory (an easier place for shoot-em-up pics to find…
Forgive me if I have a “The Ten Commandments” flashback for a moment. The 1956 film (the last directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille) was one the the ultimate Biblical treatments to take place in Egypt. With Academy Award winners Charlton Heston (“Ben-Hur”) and Yul Brynner (“The King and I”), plus actors who should…
Denis Villeneuve’s last film, 2013’s “Prisoners,” had everything: Gripping story; beautiful camerawork; and a great performance from Jake Gyllenhaal alongside Hugh Jackson. His follow-up Sicario only has the star-studded cast. Emily Blunt (“Edge of Tomorrow”) plays an FBI agent, Kate Macer, who enlists to join an escalating drug war between the U.S. and Mexico, in…
