Not a bad movie, but an absurd mess. I say not bad because there was a lot of beauty, and if you know a lot about kung fu those parts might have been interesting. All I know about kung fu after watching this movie is that it doesn’t make you sweat, it allows you to […]
This movie about troubled youths in…exactly what kind of facility?…exposed my lack of empathy, as I didn’t find myself caring about anyone on-screen. Brie Larson had a Cate Blanchett-type role, but as much as I enjoyed watching her I couldn’t believe her character. First, she was absurdly perfect and self-controlled as a counselor tending to […]
Jennifer Anniston was way too good for Jason Sudeikis, let alone this movie, although she was seriously unconvincing as a stripper. Still, as spoofs go, there were plenty of cute, fun moments. I never looked at my watch, or worried that anything bad would actually happen.
I’m not wild for films about losers, and Miles Teller, besides being a 25-year-old high-school senior, was definitely a loser. Shailene Woodley was wonderful in the Molly Ringwald role, but instead of making me happy, their reunion at the end was disappointing: she could do better. All he had done was pick her up to […]
Woody Allen looks back, through Tennessee Williams to Shakespeare and the Greeks, to give us a classic tragical heroine. There is no story ‘arc,’ as is the Hollywood norm; instead, we are left to watch the inexorable, inevitable descent of Jasmine French from Hamptons high to homelessness. When she appears to have a chance to […]
The funniest part of this movie was the way it treated voice-over artists as major players in the Hollywood scene, culminating in the Golden Trailers ceremony. I mean, when was the last time you saw a trailer that even had a voice-over? Maybe it was a metaphor for Hollywood in general? Lake Bell, a better-looking […]
A sick movie about sick people – specifically, Indonesian gangsters who killed wantonly in 1965 and are now willing to make a movie about it. It’s hard to feel bad for mass murderers, but it is fairly clear they are being manipulated by director Joshua Oppenheimer, who must know that his subjects are making fools […]
Lots of cute moments, most supplied by Sam Rockwell as the cool-dude amusement park assistant manager (although technically he didn’t seem to be managing anything, no one else was, either). The limp 14-year-old dealing with parents and girls is a tried-and-true trope, and it didn’t fail here, but the story otherwise never rose above the […]
Moral of the movie: don’t move into a haunted house. Backup advice: once in a haunted house, move out as fast as you can. The pseudoscientific demonologists, especially the lovely Vera Farmiga, added a nice touch to the otherwise plebeian story, but I lost track of the various daughters and the opportunity to make something […]
A “fun-fun-fun” movie with great music and genuinely heartwarming cameos by Bruce Springsteen, Sting, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder and Mick Jagger. Although nominally about them, the backup singers Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Claudia Kennear, et al., somehow remained in the background. I couldn’t figure out if the movie had a “point” – how someone becomes […]
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