Movies starring Brie Larson

Potential Spoilers: I reveal a little more about the plot than I normally do in reviews, primarily because I want to discuss the way the film progresses during its second half. There are no big "reveals" in the review - it's not the kind of movie t...

It's so easy to go wrong with a film like this. So easy to tart it up with sentiment, to turn up the mawkishness to an "11." For an example of how badly wrong this sort of thing can go, just think Patch Adams, where the manipulation never stopped c...

When one considers the impact Judd Apatow has had on the movie scene over the past decade, it's surprising to realize that Trainwreck is only his fifth feature as a director. This also marks his return to the romantic comedy genre after a two-fil...

Spoilers ahoy! A 19-year old woman (Brie Larson) is abducted, held against her will, and repeatedly raped. After two years in captivity, she gives birth to a boy. The father (Sean Bridgers) allows her to keep the child, whom she raises. By the tim...

From time-to-time, it can be refreshing to sit back and watch a tautly-made thriller where the characters (and their actions) are constrained by the laws of physics and tension is allowed to ebb and flow as circumstances warrant. If Quentin Ta...

Minimal spoilers. There are some references to things that happen and the usual discussion about plot elements available via trailers and pre-release clips, but I have tried to remain as “spoiler-lite” as possible. As always, however, if y...

Just Mercy is the kind of high-minded tale about social injustice that often opens around this time of the year. Despite the whiff of “Oscar bait” surrounding the production, it’s a well-made, affecting tale about do-gooders who do good ...

Don Jon is about addiction, obsession, and compulsion. It's about how the elements that drive and define our lives can impede normal, productive behavior. And, unlike a dark film like Shame, which deals with the same subject, it attacks its thesis ...

The Gambler is a solid remake - a film that retraces the path of the original while carving out its own identity. The 2014 iteration isn't as good as its 1974 predecessor but it offers its share of small pleasures, not the least of which is the c...

The television series 21 Jump Street, like many old shows, is a product of its time. Trying to accomplish a "straight" remake of something so irrevocably tied to the '80s could not be done in 2012; it wouldn't work. When Michael Mann reworked Miami...