Suburbicon lazily delivers a caper that lacks cleverness, smarts, and anything edgy other than the spurts of hemoglobin that stain a few starched shirts. Even if it is pitch black by design, the final ingredient of fake sentimentality glazed over the proceedings is ineffective to add any varnish to the acidic angle of white-collar crime. Nonsensical twist follows nonsensical twist for an aimless purpose.
Read MoreEvery winning streak has to end to some time. “Live by Night” will go down as the first “L” in the loss column for Ben Affleck as a film director. After climbing to the top of the mountain with the trio of “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town,” and the Oscar parade of “Argo,” there was nowhere to go but down, but this newest film is a little more than down.
Read MoreCircling back to the “timely” label, the film bears the designation in equally positive and negative connotations, depending of your personal capacity. Consider “The Birth of a Nation” to be the antithesis to “Selma” two years ago. This film’s depiction of violent retaliation reverberates far differently than Martin Luther King’s example of nonviolence. Audiences will wrestle with that polar opposite being empowering or troubling in justification.
Read More"Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" is constantly intense, powerfully suspenseful, and operatically enthralling on an emotional and sensory level. It is a remarkable experience on the big screen. We are in a new era with a new tone. There is room in the cinematic superhero landscape for important and formidable urgency like this. Let Marvel stick to the shiny sparkles and corner their piece of the market. This new franchise has chosen its mature path and they are showing the resolute fortitude to stick with it, haters be damned. What follows is spoiler-free!
Read MoreSewn with care to document an unopened storybook file on little-rememberd, forgotten Cold War heroics and theatrics, "Bridge of Spies" is the kind of historical drama that Steven Spielberg can make in his sleep. In a way, this is Spielberg's throwback answer to "Argo," three years after Ben Affleck's film swept the top Oscars away from Spielberg's own "Lincoln." He doesn't need that one-upmanship for his ego. "Bridge of Spies" is more a reminder that the master is still capable of making a winner with ease.
Read MoreBy tackling the subject of cancer and doing so in the guise of a quirky high school comedy, "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" stands out as proof that a movie can be earnest and humorous at the same time. It can be understated in one moment and then completely outgoing the next. It is a film that can feel facetious and yet still be profound. It takes the modern high school setting that is deliberately riddled with innate tropes, stereotypes, and cliches and masterfully steers around every single one of them to offer you something smart, touching, and, most of all, original. That is no small feat and something to stand up and celebrate.
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