All that lashing wind and rain, and Fuqua’s sometimes haphazard storytelling, deny us the grim pleasures of Denzel’s methodical slayings, which often take clever advantage of whatever tools happen to be handy
… Eating Animals proves persuasive mostly in its diagnosis of what has gone wrong, and in its account of how it went wrong on such a massive scale (through thumbnail histories of KFC, Tyson, and Chicken McNuggets)
Miriam (Léa Drucker) has quit her job and absconded with the family’s two kids — 11-year-old Julien (Thomas Gioria) and almost-18 Josephine (Mathilde Auneveux) — after, she explains, experiences of spousal and child abuse
As with most horror films, the cast gets whittled down one by one by the killer, in this case, a cabal of folks in black hoods capable of showing up at the characters’ homes at a moment’s notice — they’re maniacally smart, always 10 steps ahead of the gang
Despite some distracting narrative choices and sketchy character development (especially with Mara’s character, who, of course, turns into a love interest), the film does eventually find its footing
Van Helsing is a distant memory by the time we reach Dracula (aka Drac) in the present day, feeling lonely at Hotel Transylvania, his secret resort run by and for monsters, where demonic creatures and other surreal abominations of nature are allowed to vacation free of human meddling
In Season 2, that tension gathers over Sam and Ruth (Alison Brie), a GLOW wrestler/cast member and veteran of discouraging, often humiliating Hollywood casting calls
Granik says this about that near-decade between her narrative films: “It’s been like psycho-cardio workout on steroids the past eight years.”
Shock and Awe is a 90-minute liberal told-you-so, a polemic that, like a long Rachel Maddow segment, is more cheery than thunderous, even as it names the names that must be named
You’ve heard about the Bill Murray urban legends. Now watch the supposed witnesses tell the tales on camera when The Bill Murray Stories makes its Miami premiere at the third annual Miami Independent Film Festival.
Sorry to Bother You sings in a voice all its own, thanks to the righteous vision of Riley, known for his 1990s hip-hop group The Coup and his vocal support for labor rights
… As we see the propane tanks and apple boxes and tarps that father and daughter have gathered, we don’t need to be told that these two are not just out camping; they live in the woods
En el Séptimo Día carefully observes the men’s world in realistic details, pausing to appreciate what we might only half-pay attention to if we were living this
Skyscraper is a family-bonding adventure film starring Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell and two elementary-aged children who are as good at appearing darling (in the early scenes) as they are at playacting the role of traumatized hostages (in the later scenes)
The film even confronts its own audience in some ways, as it goes from a tale of three people learning more about their identities, to one about the very nature of human identity itself …
… The plot’s developments at times could seem tenuous, but I found them totally daring and confident, as though Riley knew the rules of every screenwriting guide and the demand for “realism,” and he said, “Nah, I’m good,” because he had bigger points to make …
… There’s an urgency and an anger this time around that helps paper over some of the story’s messiness, as well as some of the awkward drama of trying to explain where this whole crazy Purge idea actually came from
In the exhausting South Florida summer heat, the cool interior of a cinema is the only place to be. You could take your pick of any blockbuster feature hitting the screens this year, or you could take a trip back into a different era with any number of classics showing…
When’s the last time you saw a narrative feature with a genre that was so shrewdly unfixed that you genuinely had no idea what would — or could — happen next?
The writers, who include Flynn as well as series creator Marti Noxon (Mad Men, UnREAL, Dietland), don’t exactly hit viewers over the head with the retrograde gender politics of small-town America, but those dynamics are firmly on display
… The heroine of Ava — this imaginatively composed first feature by Sadaf Foroughi — rebuffs the expectations of her parents and the norms of the strict society around her
… It’s nice that writer/director Shana Feste’s family comic drama Boundaries shows an adult woman reluctant to let her vagabond dad back into her life — for good reason
