Search for 2017

“Raped While Dying”, “And Still No Arrests”, “How Come, Chief Willoughby?” The text of those three billboards establishes a narrative but, although that’s the starting point for Martin McDonagh’s stellar Three Billboards Outside...

When it comes to using dialogue as a mechanism to drive a movie, few (not named David Mamet) are better than Aaron Sorkin with his rat-a-tat-tat approach and ability to craft monologues as living things. After having had a hand in writing some...

It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to argue that Wonder Woman is the best straightforward comic book-inspired movie since Christopher Nolan was making his Batman films. (For clarification purposes, I consider Deadpool and Logan, with their more...

Although the events depicted in Fatih Akin’s In the Fade are fictional, their implications and consequences are grounded in reality. Terrorist events are becoming sadly commonplace and, although news reports focus on the immediate action, ra...

Over the past two decades, horror movies have increasingly gravitated toward jump-scare experiences: stories more interested in delivering sudden shocks than developing suspense through mood and atmosphere. This dumbing down of horror, which h...

On the surface, Logan is a superhero movie featuring the return of two of movie-dom’s most beloved and venerable mutants. Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman were both on hand when Bryan Singer’s 2000 feature X-Men blew open the doors to modern moti...

In recent years, some of the most outlandish and edgy movies have emerged from South Korea, where directors like Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, and Bong Joon-ho have challenged norms and defied conventions. The results, although not always succes...

The Big Sick is a Judd Apatow special. Although Apatow is accorded only a producer credit on the Michael Showalter-directed film, the movie contains the hallmarks of Apatow’s romantic comedies: a ribald, edgy sense of humor; more “real” ...

Always save the best for last…that’s not a phrase many movie series adhere to. It happens occasionally but franchises that build to a satisfying climax are few and far between. That, among other things, makes the new Planet of the Apes rebo...

Although Dunkirk is technically a war film, its tone and style are those of a high-octane thriller. For his most serious-minded film to date, Christopher Nolan has employed all the weapons in his arsenal to craft something that, despite the O...