Johnnie To, the reigning king of the crime movie and the romantic code of gangster brothers within the mercenary world of organized crime, delivers another perfect little genre piece with Vengeance (Hong Kong, 2009). French pop legend Johnny Hallyday stars as Costello, a retired pro who comes to Macau to take revenge on the men […]
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s old, obsolete Terminator is back in black in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Black leather, that is, as well as his trademark dark glasses and mono-syllabic punchlines. He may be machine, but he’s got the spirit of a human whirring inside the gearbox as he plays tough-love father figure to John […]
“This boy… and this girl… were never properly introduced to the world we live in…,” begins They Live By Night (1948), a bubble of a brief, idealized vision of young love immediately swept away in the urgency and desperation of the prison break in the very next scene. The directorial debut of American filmmaker Nicholas […]
MTV Films found a niche in the early 2000s with by missing inner-city dramas with youth culture in a way that most studio dramas never quite manage. Freedom Writers (2007), based on the true story of Erin Gruwell, is one of their best, a perfect match of subject and studio. Hillary Swank plays Gruwell, an […]
Keri Russell glows in Waitress (2007), the sweet, sour and sexy film by actress-turned-filmmaker Adrienne Shelly. She is amazingly funny as Jenna, the melancholy pie queen of a highway eatery in a vaguely drawn small Southern town. This is a place where the waitresses call each other “Hon” and toss in a little good-natured attitude […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, FilmStruck, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Willem Dafoe earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the manager of a low-rent hotel in The Florida Project (2017, R), a powerful and moving look at the life of […]
“You interested in joining the CIA? The benefits are great. The trick in not getting killed. That’s the key to the whole benefits program.” Ever had a relative who thinks they’re part of the CIA? Ever had one who really was? The original The In-Laws (1979) tackles both at once and delivers one of the […]
A Simple Plan (1998) – An endless white landscape of rolling hills and snow-blanketed forests. A lonely acoustic score (by Danny Elfman) plays in the background. A vision of rural simplicity portrayed in hushed tones. The stillness is about to shatter. Brothers Hank (Bill Paxton), an accountant at a small town feed store, and Jacob […]
King of Kings (1961), Nicholas Ray’s epic drama of the story of Christ (and ostensible remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1927 silent classic), has less spectacle than the other epics of its era but it remains one of the most interesting and perceptive Biblical epics of its era. Narration (by Orson Welles) takes us back […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, FilmStruck, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The interstellar saga continues in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, PG-13) as Rey (Daisy Ridley) goes in search of guidance from Jedi master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) while the Resistance […]
