Category Archives: Movie Review

“No Escape”: The family that flees together stays together

no-escape-may-be-intense-and-horrifying-but-its-also-tasteless

“No Escape” opens Wednesday at Point, Palace and Star Cinemas. R, 1:43, two and a half stars out of four

It was not surprising to me to learn that “No Escape” filmmakers John Erick and Drew Dowdle has made horror films up until now (“Devil,” “Quarantine”). Because, although presented as an action thriller, “No Escape” is really a horror film at heart, the Dowdles effectively using the tricks of the trade to build suspense and dread in the viewer. It’s just that, instead of a serial killer or a demon, the boogeyman this time is an entire country.

Continue reading →

“Aloft”: Chilly, elliptical drama struggles to take flight

aloft

“Aloft” is now playing at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:30, two stars out of four.

“Aloft” is a movie that throws you into the mix without much warning at the beginning, and yanks you back out at the end even more abruptly. I didn’t mind that writer-director Claudia Llosa’s film didn’t answer all of the questions that it posed. It’s just that, when it did provide an answer, it was often trite and obvious.

Continue reading →

“She’s Funny That Way”: Peter Bogdanovich’s wobbly screwball barely makes it to the plate

shesfunny2

“She’s Funny That Way” opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and is available on iTunes and video-on-demand. R, 1:33, two stars out of four.

Be wary of a great cast. That might seem counterintuitive — more good actors should make for a better movie, right? — but salting the credits with too many big names runs the risk of a celebrity pile-up on screen. That’s what happened with, for example, George Clooney’s “Monuments Men,” where the A-listers were so polite in making sure they didn’t outshine each other that they forgot to make a good movie.

Continue reading →

“Saint Laurent”: Not an off-the-rack biopic of the legendary designer

saintlaurent

“Saint Laurent” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 2:15, two and a half stars out of four.

There’s a scene late in “Saint Laurent” where a group of journalists are (prematurely) writing the obituary for legendary fashion designer Yves St. Laurent, finding tidy phrases to sum up the man’s life and impact (“Make sure you include the word ‘visionary’.”) It seems to sum up director and co-writer Bertrand Bonello’s distaste for the idea of making a traditional biopic, with a clean narrative arc and easily identifiable causes-and-effects.

Continue reading →

“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”: Espionage isn’t his strong suit

XXX MAN UNCLE MOV JY 1187 .JPG A ENT

“The Man From U.N.C.L.E” opens Friday at Point, Palace and Star Cinemas. PG-13, 1:56, two and a half stars out of four.

You don’t want to watch “The Man From U.N.C.L.E,” you want to pore over it like it was a glossy catalog. Instead of updating the spy TV show to a modern era, Guy Ritchie (“Sherlock Holmes”) positively wallows in ’60s European style — the cars, the dresses, the music and especially the suits. There’s a rather witty scene with the two heroes arguing over which purse their female accomplice should wear with each outfit, and you think yeah, this could be the entire movie: “The Spy Who Loved To Tell Me What Not To Wear.”

Continue reading →

“Dark Places”: Charlize Theron is a goner girl in ludicrous mystery

Dark-Places-laundromat

“Dark Places” opens Friday at Star Cinema. R, 1;54, two stars out of four.

A man sits in prison. He may not have committed the crime he’s convicted of. So why doesn’t he fight? Is he afraid? Is he protecting someone?

Or, as in the case of “Dark Places,” is the real solution to the mystery so silly and convoluted that he’s embarrassed to even say it out loud in a courtroom.

Adapted from the novel by Gillian Flynn, famous for “Gone Girl,” “Dark Places” starts off in a promising place and devolves quickly from there. Writer-director Gilles Paquet-Brenner (“Sarah’s Key”) completely loses the emotional thread of the story in a tangle of red herrings, false scares and wasted performances.

Continue reading →

“Shaun the Sheep Movie”: Aardman’s latest is a shear pleasure

Shaun-The-Sheep-Movie

“Shaun the Sheep” opens Wednesday at Point, Palace and Star Cinema. PG, 1:24, three stars out of four.

My foolproof way to tell if my kids really liked a movie or not is whether they quote lines from the movie afterwards. I didn’t hear a peep out of them about “Minions,” while I’ll heard “That’s one messed-up looking dog” on repeat for days after “Ant-Man.”

But my theory grinds to a halt with the British studio Aardman Animation’s “Shaun the Sheep Movie,” as there are no lines to quote. There is not a line of dialogue in this 84-minute film, just bleats, grunts, growls, sighs, and the occasionally wordless singing. Which means the folks at Aardman have to be as clever at telling their story as they are at showing it via their trademark stop-motion animation.

Continue reading →

“Southpaw”: Going 12 rounds with boxing-movie cliches

southpaw-trailer-review-could-this-be-gyllenhaal-s-oscar-winner-327579

“Southpaw” opens Friday at Point, Palace and Star Cinemas. R, 2:03, two stars out of four.

Bulked up beyond reason, crazy-eyed and covered in his own blood, Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t look like a good-guy boxer at the opening of “Southpaw.” As Billy “The Great” Hope, Gyllenhaal looks like the guy the good-guy boxer knocks out in the third act in order to win the championship.

Seeing the tattooed, mumbling Hope take shot after shot in the ring, almost cheerfully absorbing the pain, we’re led to be believe that this will be a different sort of boxing drama from director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) and writer Kurt Sutter (“Sons of Anarchy”), grittier and meatier. Fuqua shoves the camera into the bloodied faces of his combatants, as if Gyllenhaal is smacking the cameraman sideways instead of his opponent. Out of the ring, Billy seems less like a gladiator than a good-natured if murderous man-child, going where he’s told and letting the people around him make all the decisions for him.

Continue reading →

“Ant-Man”: It’s time to root for the little guy

 

Ant-Man-Jumping

“Ant-Man” opens Friday at Point, Palace, Star Cinema and Sundance. PG-13, 1:57, three stars out of four.

If you’re worn out by superhero movies featuring apocalyptic battles in which cities are leveled and entire countries are lifted into space, may I present “Ant-Man,” in which the climactic showdown takes place aboard a Thomas the Tank Engine train set. And not even a particularly elaborate one.

Continue reading →

“Do I Sound Gay?”: A different way to speak up for yourself

DO I SOUND GAY - 2015 FILM STILL - Fantasy Sequence, David on Fire Island Train - Photo Credit: IFC Films

DO I SOUND GAY – 2015 FILM STILL – Fantasy Sequence, David on Fire Island Train – Photo Credit: IFC Films

“Do I Sound Gay?” is now playing on video-on-demand. Not rated, 1:17, two and a half stars out of four.

David Thorpe is a proud gay man. He marches in gay rights parades, he makes movies with his gay friends, and while just freshly out of a relationship, he’d like to be in love with another gay man someday.

The only problem? He gets bothered by the sound of a gay man’s voice, including his own. In the thought-provoking but too often unfocused documentary “Do I Sound Gay?” Thorpe recalls riding on a train full of gay men heading to Fire Island, and being irritated by the sound of their chatter. (Like “braying ninnies,” he puts it.) Even worse, he hears the same cadences coming out of his own mouth, and feels “out of sync” with his own voice. Of course, the very idea of a “gay voice” is a stereotype, but that’s sort of the point.

Continue reading →