timgrierson Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Super-Macho <i>Southpaw </i>Is Trying Way Way Way Too Hard
If you know one thing about Southpaw, which tells the story of a champion boxer who loses everything and fights to get most of it back, it’s that its star, Jake Gyllenhaal, went through a crazy training regimen to prepare for the role. It comes up in every interview, and winds up being the focal poi...
Rational Man: In Praise Of Late-Period Woody Allen
Assessing a filmmaker’s legacy can be difficult, especially when his career hasn’t ended yet. It can be even tougher when that director’s personal life has in some ways outdistanced his movies, warping our impression of them just as it’s changed our feelings about the person who made them. ...
<i>Trainwreck </i>Isn't A Revolutionary Romcom, But It Is A Great One
For a movie written by and starring a comedian whose standup upends sexual taboos and whose hit Comedy Central show often skewers different genres and pop-culture detritus, the most remarkable thing about Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck is how traditional it is. That’s not a criticism: Rather than trying t...
It's Time To Take Channing Tatum Seriously
In the last few years, I’ve noticed a funny trend. My friends and I will be talking affectionately about Channing Tatum’s movies—usually, the Jump Street films—and the other person will suddenly get quiet, like he’s about to make some dark, embarrassing confession to me. “You know, what?” he’ll inva...
<i>The Tribe </i>Is The Darkest, Greatest Silent Movie You'll See All Year
Most movies, even some of the greatest, encourage you to be passive. As intellectually stimulating or deeply moving or incredibly exciting as they might be, your role is to sit back and let it wash over you. When critics describe a film as “challenging,” it usually means a little work is required on...
<i>Me And Earl And The Dying Girl </i>Is Too Precious To Be Truly Great
The biggest obstacle toward liking Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is, well, basically everything about it. From its title on, this Sundance award-winner comes draped in preciousness and ironic remove, like a teen practically begging you to steal his lunch money while rolling his eyes and making some...
<i>Spy </i>Gives Us The Melissa McCarthy Comeback We've Been Waiting For
It’s rare that my reaction to a movie is to want to hug it. But with Spy, that was the sensation that washed over me both times I’ve seen it. It’s not just that it’s really funny and consistently entertaining—it’s that, for the first time since becoming a star, Melissa McCarthy finally is in a movie...
<i>Love & Mercy </i>Brings Brian Wilson's Legend To Life, Twice
The Brian Wilson myth lends itself easily to the biopic treatment—perhaps too easily. In clumsy hands, the Beach Boys co-founder could be reduced to his most infamous, sensationalistic qualities: genius! Recluse! Weirdo! Thankfully, the Wilson-approved Love & Mercy is several degrees smarter and mor...
Cameron Crowe's <i>Aloha</i> Is Every Bit The Disaster You Suspected
As a rule, I ignore negative buzz about upcoming movies. For one thing, you never know the agenda behind those leaking damaging information about reshoots or bad test-screening scores. For another, the film industry is littered with classic movies that were initially thought to be duds. (How many or...
Ebony And Agony: <i>Get Hard</i>, Reviewed
Despite how broad and silly they are, Will Ferrell's movies often have a stealth political side to them. When he works with his longtime creative partner, director and co-writer Adam McKay, he usually manages to address current events in a way that's pointed without being preachy. Everybody love...
Liam Neeson's Slightly Diminishing Skills: <i>Run All Night</i>, Reviewed
Critics may not like Liam Neeson's action movies, but that hasn't translated into folks not liking him for making them. Unlike, say, Johnny Depp and his endless array of "zany" characters or Nicolas Cage and his pitiful cornucopia of forgettable doing-it-for-the-paycheck roles, he hasn't become ...
Confusion Is Sex: <i>It Follows</i>, Reviewed
It's not unusual for a horror movie to connect sex with death: Scream even made a joke of the fact that the best way to stay alive in a slasher flick is to be a virgin, since the horny teens always get offed first. So there's not much novelty to the fact that the much-hyped indie It Follows draw...
Drink The Kool-Aid: Why True/False Is Our Best Little Film Festival
Film festivals are weird things. If you love movies and have dreamed of going to, say, Cannes or Sundance, you might have this romantic vision of watching dozens of movies amid happy, goodhearted souls who share your abiding passion for film. The reality is, you'll meet some of those people at...
Will Smith Is A Blank Slate Now, And <i>Focus </i>Doesn't Help
Most movie stars charm us by creating the illusion that we know them. Tom Cruise's appeal comes in large part from our identification with his intense, full-throttle performances; the Rock, his eyebrow always arched in a self-mocking way, lets us in on the joke that action movies are preposter...
Oscar Predictions 2015: The Categories No One Understands
Sunday's Academy Awards will have plenty of suspense: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor are all toss-ups at this point. Will and I will tackle those and the other major categories Friday, but today, I'm going to look at the lower-profile awards: the tech prizes, short films, etc. The...
You Only Smirk Twice: <i>Kingsman: The Secret Service</i>, Reviewed
At a time when our superhero movies and action films are often dressed in dark tones, the gleefully sarcastic and proudly hyper-violent Kingsman: The Secret Service ought to be a relief. Eschewing the trend of brooding characters nursing mournful back stories, this adaptation of Mark Millar and D...
The 10 Movies I'm Most Excited To See At Sundance 2015
If the Oscar prognosticators are correct, next month Boyhood will become the first film to both premiere at Sundance and win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Last year's festival had plenty of other highlights, too—Whiplash, Life Itself, The Raid 2, The Overnighters, A Most Wanted Man—so as w...
A Way-Too-Serious Man: <i>Unbroken</i>, Reviewed
According to Unbroken, director Angelina Jolie's adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 nonfiction bestseller, Louis Zamperini had one hell of a life—so momentous, in fact, that it would make a great movie. Turns out, that ends up being part of the problem. Child delinquent, Olympic champion, ...
The Ecstasy And Agony Of MLK: <i>Selma</i>, Reviewed
Recently, a listener called into a talk-radio show I was on, asking if Paramount had sped up the release of its Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. drama Selma to capitalize on the recent deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The timing just seemed too perfect. I had to tell him that it was all just ...
Stoned Immaculate: <i>Inherent Vice</i>, Reviewed
With each passing movie, Paul Thomas Anderson wanders further and further away from the terrain mapped out by his filmmaking peers. He hasn't gotten lost yet: Inherent Vice may not be as undeniably astounding as his last three efforts, but that doesn't make it any less startling or wonderfully...