There is no real way to talk about Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation” without first addressing some of the controversy surrounding it. Parker co-wrote, co-produced, starred and directed the film (about Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in 1831), appropriating the title from D.W. Griffith’s 1915 Ku Klux Klan propaganda film. The original film is […]
Film
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Midnight Train to Nowhere
“The Girl on the Train” is off the tracks
“The Girl on the Train” is one of those books that everyone calls a “beach read.” Your brain doesn’t have to be 100 percent invested in what’s happening and the mystery is just fascinating enough to keep you turning the pages long after it’s time for bed. “The Girl on the Train” tells the story […]
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Tim Burton’s X-Men
“Miss Peregrine” is peculiarly empty
Tim Burton’s films are primarily focused on outsiders—people who don’t fit into mainstream society, and when they try, are either humiliated, heartbroken or forced to commit horrible acts of violence. If you look at “Edward Scissorhands,” “Ed Wood,” “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” and “Sleepy Hollow,” you’ll find stories of people leaving their comfort zones and trying […]
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Built to Spill
“Deepwater Horizon” is a nail-biting thriller
“Deepwater Horizon” should not be as good as it is. There’s something inherently offensive about turning a true story in which 11 people lost their lives into an action thriller/disaster picture. That’s akin to making a film about the Boston marathon bombing and shooting it like a film noir/detective thriller focused on the hunt for […]
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Limbo
John Sayles talks filmmaking
I am not adding a single ounce of hyperbole when I say that John Sayles is one of the finest filmmakers in history. He, along with life partner Maggie Renzi, a handful of my all-time favorite movies, and each one of them feels like a completely separate entity. He bounces between genres with ease, taking […]
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Western Ronin
“The Magnificent Seven” is ridin’ dirty
“The Magnificent Seven” is exactly what you get from the trailers, but with a little more and a little less. The main thing that makes the whole creaky enterprise work is getting a few likable actors together and hooting and hollering as they shoot their way around a hundred mustache-twirling villains. You’ve seen this movie […]
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Hold the Camera Still!
“Blair Witch” brings more of the same
“The Blair Witch Project” doesn’t work anymore. I saw the movie opening night in 1999 and the slowly building tension, ambiguous horror and abruptly-unnerving ending worked perfectly on my 19-year-old brain. The film kept me up late into the night as I kept hearing what I thought was cackling outside in the fields surrounding my […]
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Somebody’s Watchin’ Me
High stakes have never felt so low in “Snowden”
Sitting down to an Oliver Stone movie is always an exciting proposition. Whether you think he is a master provocateur and filmmaker or just a blowhard, there is no denying that he is capable of creating quite a reaction. In case you’re not familiar with the man, lets take a quick look at some of […]
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Land of the Free, Home of the Blame
“Sully” has all the wrong agendas
In many ways, Clint Eastwood’s “Sully” is the polar opposite of his 2014 smash hit, “American Sniper.” The story of Chesley Sullenberger’s water landing in the Hudson River didn’t carry much controversy in the press, and most mainstream media outlets posited him as a hero who saved the lives of the 155 people in his […]
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The “I’m Disappointed in Myself” Room
The cinematic equivalent of a reheated omelette
There were a few different choices for the two movies I was going to review this week. I knew one of them would be “Sully” because it would have the most cultural relevance, but for the second film I could have gone with “Little Men,” “The Wild Life,” “When the Bough Breaks” or “The Disappointments […]
