TRIPLE 9  * * *

Starring Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Woody Harrelson and Kate Winslet. Screenplay by Matt Cook. Directed by John Hillcoat.

Continue reading →

“Another epistemological prank from cinema’s snarkiest philosophers, Hail, Caesar!  is a Passion Play played for giggles, with the Golden Age of Hollywood serving as the garden of Gethsemane for yet another in the Coens’ long line of put-upon, serious men. Like most of their films, it’s about the folly of searching for meaning in a cruel and indifferent universe.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 02/08/2016

“An elliptical and at times preposterously entertaining load of hooey that both sends up and embraces every chest-beating trope in that old alpha ‘He-Man Of Letters’ tradition. Mojave is probably what Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance might’ve been like, if only Tough Guys Don’t Dance hadn’t been one of the worst movies ever made.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 01/28/2016

“The Star Wars movie you think you’ve been waiting for. Abrams gets the tricky tone and jokey exhilaration down pat, the feeling of (re)visiting a rusted-out, slightly sarcastic fairy tale. Still, a few hours after the credits rolled it’s all evaporating and I’m struggling to recall a remotely original or inventive moment in the entire goddamn thing.” – North Shore Movies, 12/18/2015

“Youth feels very much like one of those movies a director makes right after a huge success when everybody’s calling him a genius and nobody dares say no. There’s a reckless energy with which it lunges from one ga-ga visual flourish to another, consistency and coherence be damned. I found it terribly endearing.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/11/2015

“So full of unconvincing green-screen work I wouldn’t be surprised if the actors shot their scenes on a soundstage in Burbank. In The Heart Of The Sea keeps obnoxiously insisting this story inspired Melville, but nowhere here will you find the insights into obsession and humanity that made his book a classic. The movie doesn’t know Dick.” – Movie Mezzanine, 12/11/2015

“At once deeply sorrowful and exuberantly silly, Chi-Raq is a scabrous, sexy musical comedy shot through with an almost unbearable sadness. The majority of the (filthy) dialogue is delivered in rhyming verse, with broad buffoonery bumping up against hectoring sermons and stunning moments of contemplation and grace.” – Movie Mezzanine, 12/04/2015

“I was not offended by the subject matter of Uncle Nick so much as I was depressed by the lazy, lameness of the gags. Basically, if you’re going to structure a movie around a middle-aged alcoholic trying to bone his barely legal niece, you should probably come up with better jokes than the ones in Mike Demski’s sorry screenplay.” – Movie Mezzanine, 12/04/2015

CREED  * * * *

Starring Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Tony Bellew and Phylicia Rashad. Screenplay by Ryan Coogler and Aaron Covington. Directed by Ryan Coogler.

Continue reading →

“Stylistically, the movie attempts to ape the screeching nocturnal momentum of Scrooged, but the screenplay feels like a rough draft. It’s a lot of half-baked conceits that don’t really fit together, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh. These are extremely familiar riffs for Rogen, but he happens to still be really good at them.” – Movie Mezzanine, 11/25/2015