movie-reviews - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Here Is A Short Review Of <i>The Last Jedi</i><em></em>
The Force Awakens was fun on its own merits, and thrilling in a nostalgic sort of way, and the fresh Star Wars youths were charming and compelling where they were supposed to be (Rey and Finn), and darkly charismatic where they were supposed to be (Kylo Ren), and absurdly good-looking and sexy where...
<i>The Black Stallion </i>Takes Film Back To Its Elemental Beginnings
Originally published in the April, 1980 issue of Chicago Magazine, featured in the new anthology, Movies That Mattered, it appears here with permission....
<i>The Killing Of A Sacred Deer</i> Is As Scary As Anything You'll Ever See<em></em>
The scariest movie in theaters this Halloween season isn’t the one where a college kid relives the night she was brutally murdered over and over, nor is it the one in which a homicidal maniac with a god complex designs elaborate games in order to torture and kill his victims, nor is it the movie abo...
What Is <i>Mother! </i>About?
Here’s a question: Should you go see Mother!, the new, polarizing, bearshit-insane film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem that everyone is talking about though apparently no one saw and the few who did see it had no idea what in God’s name was ...
<i>The Untouchables </i>Is Too Neat To Be A Truly Great Gangster Movie
Thirty years ago The Untouchables, Brian De Palma’s most commercial movie to that point, was released and helped launch Kevin Costner as an All-American star. This review by Pauline Kael originally appeared in The New Yorker and appears here with permission from the author’s estate....
<i>Suicide Squad</i> Is The Summer's Best Movie About Divorce
I consider my life to consist of two parts: one before I saw Suicide Squad, the other after. ...
The First Three <i>Rocky</i> Movies Were Nothing But White Wish Fulfillment
This piece originally appeared in the August, 1982 issue of Film Comment. It is reprinted here with permission. ...
Disney's <em>Bears</em>: Bears Watching
There is a lot to like about Bears, the latest cinematic offering from Disneynature. There is much to dislike as well, but you'll be fine if you approach the viewing experience from the proper point of view. That point of view being that bears are great, and watching them do bear stuff is also great...
Michael Bay's Ode To Meatheads: <em>Pain & Gain</em>, Reviewed.
There are many movies that could have been made from the raw materials of Pain & Gain, which is based on a series of outrageous Miami New Times articles about three dimwit Florida bodybuilders who in 1994 kidnapped a rich local businessman and stripped him of all his assets. Some filmmakers, for exa...
Danny Boyle Mesmerizes Himself. <em>Trance</em>, Reviewed.
For director Danny Boyle, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. With each genre of movie he makes, you get the sense that he wants to be sure it's the most demonstrative of its kind ever. Trainspotting was the druggiest movie ever. 28 Days Later was the zombie-iest movie ever. Slumdog Millionaire...
An Epic That Stumbles. <em>The Place Beyond The Pines</em>, Reviewed.
Director Derek Cianfrance's last film, Blue Valentine, was a crushing study of a couple (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) falling apart. It was beautifully made and well acted—I loved it—but the rawness of the emotions and the ambition of the structure (cycling between the present and t...
<em>Room 237</em> Will Make You Love <em>The Shining</em> All Over Again
One of the saddest things about the death of a favorite filmmaker is realizing that you'll probably never see any new movie from him ever again. When popular musicians die, they always leave material lying around that their estates can spruce up and put out for the fans. (Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, ...