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Snowden

Few would debate that the story of Edward Snowden’s life is as compelling as it is controversial. Based on Oliver Stone’s biopic, Snowden, it would also seem to be inherently non-cinematic. By opting to go with a straightforward account o...

Run Time: 2:14
U.S. Release Date: 2016-09-16
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content, Nudity)
Genre: Drama
Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, ...
Star Trek Beyond

Note: This review contains minor spoilers, although nothing that can’t be gleaned from watching the trailers. Star Trek Beyond is a Star Trek movie, although not an especially good one. Although that description might sound self-evident, the...

Run Time: 2:00
U.S. Release Date: 2016-07-22
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Profanity)
Genre: Science Fiction/Action
Director: Justin Lin
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, ...
Suicide Squad

It has apparently become an old-fashioned notion to believe motion pictures should be grounded in concepts like narrative and character rather than in how loudly the soundtrack plays classic rock songs and how many cuts the director can use in an ove...

Run Time: 2:10
U.S. Release Date: 2016-08-05
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Profanity)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Will Smith, Karen Fukuhara, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, ...
Sully

Most of those who elect to see Sully, Clint Eastwood’s re-enactment of the 2009 ditching of a commercial airliner in the Hudson River, will remember the incident involving U.S. Airways Flight 1549 from news reports. For several days following t...

Run Time: 1:36
U.S. Release Date: 2016-09-09
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Scenes of peril, profanity)
Genre: Drama
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, ...
Temple

One common complaint about modern-day horror is a tendency to spoon-feed plot elements to viewers, revealing not only too much about the resident evil but doing it in a manner that leaves little to interpretation. Whatever its flaws, and there...

Run Time: 1:18
U.S. Release Date: 2017-09-01
MPAA Rating: "NR" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Horror
Director: Michael Barrett
Cast: Logan Huffman, Natalia Warner, Brandon Tyler Sklenar, ...

A traditional Bottom Five list plus five other films that weren't quite so bad but that I hated anyway.

The 2016 Top 10 thus far... January 1, 2016 through September 30, 2016.

Some thoughts about the movie year in general and a list of my Top 10 (although with three runners-up).

Their Finest

Over the years, World War II has proven to be fertile territory for the motion picture industry – so much so that nearly every conceivable tale, event, and “angle” has been covered. However, although the “nothing new under the sun” p...

Run Time: 1:56
U.S. Release Date: 2017-04-21
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content, Brief Nudity)
Genre: Drama
Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, ...
Tiger Hunter, The

The Tiger Hunter melds an affectionate drama about the so-called immigrant experience with sit-com-like humor that is more often distracting than amusing. When The Tiger Hunter works, it does so because of the honesty and openness of the scree...

Run Time: 1:34
U.S. Release Date: 2017-09-22
MPAA Rating: "NR" (Adult Themes)
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Director: Lena Khan
Cast: Danny Pudi, Rizwan Manji, Jon Heder, ...