With some of the most beautiful animations committed to film, Kubo and the Two Strings is a movie that prides itself on story and delivers on its promise “If you blink, do it now.” Some movies just remind you how much you love movies. These are the movies that transport you to a different world, dazzle you…
Chiwetel Ejiofor guides "12 Years a Slave" with a strong, adroit performance. The first time I went to watch 12 Years a Slave it was at the height of its acclaim, buzz, and frontrunner status for the Oscars. There were so many expectations for the film and that may have clouded my original…
Wild Tales is certainly crazy, but every single vignette is a unique take on revenge and the animalistic urges we all have. Unlike a lot of foreign language films, the English title for Argentina's "Relatos Salvajes" is a direct translation to "Wild Tales." I point this out because this, along with the opening title sequence (a montage of…
Weiner is one of the most satisfying and hilarious political films ever made, which makes the fact that it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary all the more impressive Where most documentaries often rely on style to tell a story, fly-on-the-wall documentaries have to rely on the subject. Thankfully for Weiner, the subject is a narcissistic politician that can’t…
Emotionally raw and unnerving, The Impossible is a disaster movie that is actually a family drama at its core, which makes for a thrilling a beautiful movie This month, director J.A. Bayona returns with a movie adaptation of Patrick Ness’ novel A Monster Calls. So, I thought it would be a perfect time to go back and…
Despite relying on genre cliches, a new setting and distinctly Norwegian point-of-view make The Wave an enjoyable disaster flick By the time we get to the eponymous wave in 2015’s The Wave, we are nearly halfway through the movie. Usually when that happens in a disaster movie, that time feels squandered. But not with The Wave. We…
Southpaw is the Jake Gyllenhaal movie you did not know you needed. It is a fantastic motivational sports movie, filled with drama and suspense. In my opinion, Southpaw is the best boxing movie since Million Dollar Baby, which Clint Eastwood starred and directed. This movie will leave you on the edge of your seat and…
In the age of movie reboots such as Poltergeist, Jurassic World, and Robocop, Terminator Genisys has relaunched the Terminator series. Terminator, directed by James Cameron and released in 1984, was an instant hit. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a professional bodybuilder to a cyborg assassin who famously said, “I’ll be back.” The last two chapters in…
Jason Reitman, of Thank You for Smoking and Juno, brings us his latest comment on modern society: Men, Women, and Children. This film follows the lives of several teenagers and their parents, befitting the title. It focuses on the constraints of our technological world, loss of human connection, with an overarching theme of insignificance. The…
Dan Gilroy makes his directorial debut with Nightcrawler, which he also penned, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. A gripping psychological thriller, Nightcrawler follows Louis Bloom (Gyllenhall), a persistent young man eager to break into the world of L.A. crime journalism. Having first screened on the Toronto International Film Festival, Nightcrawler claims a Halloween release date, a fitting…
