Every once in a while, there’s a perfect sequence of film. The part with the plane in North by Northwest. The accidental gunshot in Pulp Fiction. The Raiders of the Lost Ark truck chase. 2001‘s zero-g workout scene. The beginning of Up. Blade Runner‘s tears in the rain. Buster Keaton. The POV tour of the […]
Erik Henriksen
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Broadcast News
Anchorman 2: Ron Burgundy Ruins News Forever
Ron Burgundy tries to hang himself in the first 15 minutes of “Anchorman 2”—and for a second, even this Anchorman fan thought that might not be a terrible idea. It’s been nine years since the brilliant “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” began its long journey toward becoming a cult classic, and expectations for a […]
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Welcome to the Jungle
Katniss has got fun ‘n’ games!
Disappointingly competent, 2012’s The Hunger Games…well, at least it got the basics right. It was a fine adaptation—totally, forgettably, blandly fine. So it’s a pretty excellent surprise that its sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, is an order of magnitude better: Catching Fire will please whatever it is that Hunger Games fans call themselves (Hangries? […]
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Gods and Monsters
Thor is back—and more importantly, so is Loki
The populace has been indoctrinated. Now that Marvel and its corporate overlords at Disney can safely assume that every sentient creature on Earth is familiar with each of the Avengers, here’s Thor: The Dark World, coming just five months after Iron Man 3. Even if there are any pop cultural holdouts—no doubt they’re cold and […]
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Lust, Caution
Blood and regret in Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy's The Counselor
It’s perhaps best to think of the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) not as a lawyer but as an investor. An investor who has made a terrible investment. That isn't to say he's stupid. He's clever enough to know how handsome he is. He's clever enough to have fallen in love with the gorgeous Laura (Penélope Cruz), […]
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Firing Range
Guns, monsters, and Blue Caprice
“I’ve created a monster,” says John (Isaiah Washington), looking appreciatively at Lee (Tequan Richmond). John (old, calculating, furious) and Lee (young, quiet, and a terrifyingly good shot) are sitting in their 1990 Chevrolet Caprice; navy blue, it has a hole sawed out of its trunk that's just large enough to fit the barrel of a […]
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Tom Hanks on a Boat
Captain Phillips: A Movie About Tom Hanks on a Boat!
Captain Phillips shouldn’t be as good as it is. It’s a big studio picture, based on an inspirational true story, starring one of the world’s hugest movie stars, directed by a guy most famous for his Bourne movies: Broken into pieces, Captain Phillips should mass-market sap. But it’s the opposite of that: lean and smart […]
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One Hundred Minutes of Solitude
Gravity: A reminder the universe doesn’t care if you live or die
In the Netflix era, it’s remarkable to be reminded what going to the movies can feel like: dwarfed by bright images on a massive screen, drenched in sound, hearing a collective gasp rush through a crowd of strangers. It is an experience that’s grown increasingly rare: We have grown used to watching things on our […]
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Space Mountain Man
Vin against nature in Riddick
There are supposedly only a few stories out there: man against nature, man against self, man against society, and man against man. Not content with any of those, 2000's low-budget sci-fi flick Pitch Black mashed up all four. The result was a low-fi, clever chunk of violent pulp, starring Vin Diesel as Riddick, a conflicted […]
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British Invasion
Pints, nostalgia, robots and The World’s End
Nostalgia rots your insides, holding you back and preventing you from accomplishing anything new. This is a hard, unsentimental truth, one usually taught by too many heartbreaks or too many awkward reunions. Gary King (Simon Pegg) still hasn’t learned it. Still rocking the battered Dr. Martins and Sisters of Mercy T-shirt he’s had since he […]