There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie: You can never have sex, never drink or do drugs, never say you’ll “be right back.” But there are also certain rules that characters have to adhere to in order to navigate a …
Read More »
When you play the game to be the next Game of Thrones, you win, or you waste a whole lot of money. You remember Game of Thrones, right? Epic fantasy drama adapted from a beloved (but still unfinished) book series, kicked off a new blockbuster era in television in terms …
Read More »
Jake Gyllenhaal’s new thriller, The Guilty, boasts a healthy cast list that includes Ethan Hawke, Riley Keough, Paul Dano, Peter Sarsgaard, Eli Goree, comedian Bill Burr, and the great Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Dolemite Is My Name). You won’t see any of them in the movie. You’ll hear quite a bit …
Read More »
The source material is a bestseller. The cast is A-list. The director is British and celebrated, the cinematographer is French and aces, and the screenwriter is a Pulitzer-winning playwright. There is, on the surface, no reason to think that The Woman in the Window, the long-anticipated and even-longer-delayed adaptation of …
Read More »
“I never ask people, just casually, for their phone number,” Evan (Will Brill) says. This is how he greets Renesha (Brittany S. Hall), a woman he met in a bar some time before, whose number he’d asked for in front of her friends, and his shyness seemed, at the time, …
Read More »
Jean (Rachel Brosnahan) is sullen and vacant. Staring out behind geometric sunglasses, she rests on a lawn chair in a sheer magenta robe, cigarette in hand, the epitome of the young, begrudging Seventies housewife and the stuff Lana Del Rey videos are made of. We’re given hints to the exact …
Read More »
Meet Oliver (Azhy Robertson). He’s eight years old or so, and is somewhere on the Autism spectrum. He loves SpongeBob Squarepants. Oliver doesn’t talk, though his speech therapist thinks he’s making some progress; he uses a sort of modern speak-and-spell app on his phone to communicate. His mom, Sarah (Gillian …
Read More »
A diabolically clever script by actor-turned-director Dave Franco and mumblecore pioneer Joe Swanberg, The Rental has a simple premise: Take two couples with volatile sexual dynamics, have them rent an AirBNB for a weekend on the rugged Oregon coast, mix in secret cameras and the presence of a peeping psycho, …
Read More »
Who wouldn’t want to shake off the pandemic blues with a hilariously, unapologetically stupid Will Ferrell farce? Expectations were high for Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, a stupidly long title in which Ferrell plays the none-too-bright Lars Erickssong, an Icelandic pop singer whose life dream is to …
Read More »
There should be special place in movie hell for lazy filmmakers who get off showing adults terrorizing children and animals. Is there an easier or cheaper way to jolt an audience? That’s a rhetorical question. Becky, available on demand and at a drive-in near you starting June 5th, is too …
Read More »