Looks like the summer of 2017 is going to be another mixed bag of movies. For every well-received, attention-getting spectacle such as “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” or “Wonder Woman” we are gifted something rather flimsy and forgettable such as co-writer/director Johannes Roberts’ generic “divas in deep water dilemma” thriller 47 Meters Down. Contrived…
The Incredible Story of the Stone Boy (“La increíble historia del Niño de Piedra”) is an animated film that begins with our main character, a young girl named Marina, nonchalantly talking to a cloud. Yes, you read that right. A cloud. With a face. This cloud then gives Marina (voice of Melissa Gedeón) a ride…
Isaac Ezban’s The Similars (Los Parecidos) is an inventive, daring psychological thriller about eight people stranded in a remote bus depot during a never-ending thunderstorm. It’s relatively short (89 minutes) and exquisitely sweet with intensity and mystery that grow with each passing moment. It’s dark, it’s rainy, and poor Ulises (Gustavo Sánchez Parra, “Get the…
I’m thinking of a movie. It stars a man and a woman struggling against the elements to survive a vast, empty, lonesome, and perilous environment on their journey home. Oh, and it’s directed by someone with the last name of Cuarón. Anyone care to take a guess? If you guessed “Gravity,” you’d be correct. But…
I was not alive to experience the impact “Jaws” had when it came out, but I am certainly aware of its influence and have seen it many times. So, going into The Shallows, I kept hearing from various outlets that it was “just like ‘Jaws’” or “the best shark movie since ‘Jaws’.” Granted, that isn’t…
Güeros is the kind of movie that makes you homesick. On the one hand, it makes you feel an inevitable nostalgia based upon reminiscences of sensations, tribulations, percolations probably taken for granted before they were missed for the first time. Voices, tones, phrasings of a City that homes you as much as it repels you….
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…
