The original “Sinister” was an unnerving film that followed true crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) as he moved his family into a house where the previous occupants had been brutally murdered. While researching the crime, he discovered an old cardboard box of old 8mm home movies in the attic — horrifying depictions of multiple…
Every Secret Thing begins with a birthday party — a pool party. 11-year-old Alice is thrilled to have been invited, but she’s really annoyed that her mother makes her bring Ronnie along. Ronnie is weird, quiet, and awkward, and she’s stalling Alice’s plans to be a popular girl. Also, Alice really doesn’t like that her…
It’s taken a ton of effort but it’s finally here . . . well at least the first trailer for it is. And as expected, Deadpool isn’t going to be mincing any words or actions. After all, his face looks like “Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah.” That’s just one of the after…
A good mystery movie doesn’t necessarily need a great mystery to work, but it certainly helps. So a bad mystery movie with a bland, boring mystery must be pretty damned from the start. That’s where Frank the Bastard finds itself, since despite having a mysterious title and a mysterious premise (a young woman confronts her…
The found footage approach to low-budget filmmaking has been around long enough to be used in all sorts of fun and clever ways, each attempt toeing the line between committing to the gimmick and admitting it. We’ve witnessed ghostly activity on home surveillance equipment (“Paranormal Activity”) and a giant monster trashing New York on a…
How hard it is to look at pure evil right in the eye? It is hard, very hard, mainly because, as Hannah Arendt very lucidly said, it is extremely banal. No apocalyptic Lucifer-like layouts, no tall teleologies or immense intentions; the people who do evil are brutally banal, practically plain — and they are of…
After such critical bombs and/or not very good comedies as “The Hangover Part III,” “Tammy” and “Identity Theft,” there’s finally a Melissa McCarthy vehicle we can smile and laugh at — intentionally. Unfortunately, her latest turn in the new Paul Feig (“Bridesmaids,” “The Heat”) directed film, Spy, as an unprepared, mousy analyst/secret agent, loses those…
