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A Goodbye From Grierson & Leitch
It’s a sad day here at Grierson & Leitch: After nearly four years of confusing you with movie reviews featuring seemingly arbitrary letter grades and inexplicable paragraph numbering, today is our last day at Deadspin. In two weeks, you can find us at our new home at The New Republic. But we want to...
<i>The Danish Girl</i> Makes Transgender Issues Safe For The Oscar Crowd
Of all the adjectives to describe a movie, “well-intentioned” is among the least scintillating and most wearying. It’s why a lot of people have an aversion to so-called Oscar-bait— they’re the kind of films that pop up around award season to address important subjects in a respectful way, with the h...
<i>Creed </i>Hits Harder The Further It Gets From Rocky Balboa's Shadow
1. Creed works better as an actual movie than it does as a Rocky movie, which is quite the compliment, considering that it’s an excellent Rocky movie, too. (I hadn’t seen it yet when Grierson and I did our Rocky movie rankings on Monday; I’m higher on it than he is.) More than a mere boxing film, it...
<i>The Good Dinosaur's</i> Visual Grandeur Makes Up For Its Lack Of Wit
One of the constant accolades Pixar receives about its movies is that they’re not made just for kids. This is meant as a compliment: While they’re animated and appeal to children, their emotional and thematic sophistication also makes them satisfying to grownups—maybe even more so. The downside to t...
The <i>Hunger Games</i> Are Over, But Jennifer Lawrence Is Only Getting Better
1. It seems insane to think about now, but there was a time when everyone was worried about whether or not Jennifer Lawrence could pull off the Hunger Games films. Cast as Katniss Everdeen just a year after her breakthrough in Winter’s Bone, Lawrence was considered by many an undeniable talent but a...
<i>Carol</i> Is A Beautiful Love Story, Starring A Terrific Cate Blanchett
In director Todd Haynes’ films, characters have to learn how to live in worlds that don’t suit them. In Safe, Far From Heaven and I’m Not There, his lonely protagonists often feel trapped by circumstance, unable to find any sort of real happiness because, deep down, no one around them sees things th...
<i>The Night Before </i>Is One Seth Rogen Bromance Too Many
A lot of comics have a shtick, and the trick is to give it enough flexibility so that it can be twisted and reshaped in myriad ways without breaking. Since Seth Rogen’s leading-man breakthrough in 2007’s Knocked Up, his has been impressively bendy, playing overgrown man-children who end up pulling t...
<i>By The Sea</i> Makes Marriage Look Like A Beautiful, Painful Bore
About seven months after Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston got married, The Onion ran the brilliant headline “Brad Pitt Bored With Sight of Jennifer Aniston’s Naked Body.” It was a perfect joke on a couple of levels, but the element of truth that’s always stayed with me was the notion that even the mos...
The Cheesy <i>Spectre </i>Suggests That James Bond's Darker, Grittier, Better Days Are Over
1. There was a time not so long ago when the very notion of James Bond seemed ridiculous—as anachronistic as making a movie about Betamax players or pay phones. There were actual thinkpieces 10 years back about whether James Bond could exist in a post-Austin Powers world. Even Daniel Craig worried a...
<i>The Peanuts Movie </i>Is Faithful To Charles Schulz's Creation, But Still Gets It Wrong
Back in 1997, when L.A. Weekly critic Manohla Dargis gave a negative review to The Lost World, the hotly-anticipated sequel to Jurassic Park, she noted that not liking the movie was the equivalent of announcing that Christmas had been canceled to its fans. In kind, giving a thumbs-down to The Peanut...
The Superb Investigative-Journalism Drama <i>Spotlight </i>Makes Competence Riveting
Inspirational true stories trumpet lots of commendable human traits—heroism, perseverance, compassion—but Spotlight may be the first to celebrate competence. Based on the 2001 Boston Globe investigation that revealed the depth of the Catholic Church’s coverup of clergy sexual misconduct, this straig...
You Should See the 3D Sex Drama <i>Love</i>, Even If You Hate Gaspar Noé
There are two very understandable reasons why people hate Gaspar Noé’s films: He’s a pompous tool, and his movies are often little more than showy provocations filled with vapid ciphers. If anything, Love finds the 51-year-old director doubling down on his self-appointed enfant terrible persona, and...
The Political Satire <i>Our Brand Is Crisis </i>Isn't Nearly As Sharp As It Pretends To Be
Our Brand Is Crisis means to cast a harsh light on presidential campaigns, but it mostly just panders. The new film from director David Gordon Green (who’s done everything from George Washington to Pineapple Express) spends way too much time congratulating you for agreeing with its cynical perspecti...
Here's Your Ridiculously Early 2016 Oscar Preview
The next Academy Awards will be hosted by Chris Rock and will be held on February 28, 2016. That is 130 days from now. By then, the Iowa caucus, and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, will be over. The Super Bowl will be a fading memory. Selection Sunday will be two weeks away. It is a ...
<i>Rock The Kasbah </i>Might Be Bill Murray's Worst Movie Ever
1. I love Bill Murray. You love Bill Murray. We all love Bill Murray. We love him on talk shows. We love him when he pops up in random places, doing random things. But we haven’t collectively loved a new Bill Murray movie in a long time. Sure, we’ve celebrated him in small roles: Zombieland, Moonris...
Guillermo del Toro's<i> Crimson Peak </i>Is Best Watched On Mute
1. Crimson Peak is a movie that’s all windup and no pitch. It requires a patience of you that I’m not sure it necessarily earns, and a level of patience it doesn’t feel obliged to reward. It’s not a slog; the movie always looks fantastic, and it has enough earthly delights to string you along its gr...
The Abduction Drama <i>Room </i>Gets Even More Claustrophobic When They Get Out
At its halfway point, Room arrives at the moment that you might have thought would be its big finale. After being held hostage for seven years, Joy (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) execute a daring escape from their captor, a demented weirdo known only as Old Nick (Sean Bri...
Spielberg's <i>Bridge of Spies</i> Is A Compelling Cold War Drama Your Granddad Will Love
1. Bridge of Spies is effective, efficient, compelling, smart and absorbing throughout, and I still couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. I think we’re starting to lose the Spielberg who was a risk-taker. The guy did exist, you know. After he won his last Oscar for directing Saving Private R...
Child War Is Hell In The Gripping, Important, Only Slightly Disappointing <i>Beasts Of No Nation</i>
Beasts of No Nation is such a worthy, timely, thoughtful drama that the worst you can say about it is that it’s a shame it’s only good and not amazing. Adapted, shot, and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (who previously directed 2009’s Sin Nombre and the first season of True Detective), this immersive...
The Sucky New Peter Pan Reboot Oughta Fly Straight Into The Toilet
1. It is difficult not to approach Pan with a deep, weary sigh. I am fortunate that people pay me to write about movies, and it’s something that no one should ever take for granted, particularly in this day (year? decade? quarter-century?) of media turmoil. Every assignment is a gift. One of the man...