Posted May 27, 2015in Film Review
Released in 2012, the original “Pitch Perfect” was a surprise hit. It was charming, genuinely hilarious in spots, fun throughout and featured Anna Kendrick, who is delightful. However, the success of the film seems to have obligated the creators into a sequel, and the resulting film is forced, frequently wildly
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Posted May 20, 2015in Film Review
It has been 36 years since director George Miller introduced the world to Max Rockatansky. Now, three decades after the last installment of the franchise, comes “Mad Max: Fury Road.” With this installment, Warner Bros. has handed Miller the keys to the studio and allowed him unfettered opportunity to be
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Posted May 13, 2015in Film Review
“Piku” is a film about constipation. Physical, mental and emotional. In some way or another, each of the film’s characters is constipated, unable to get him or herself moving again. Front and center is family patriarch Bhashkor (the legendary Amitabh Bachchan), whose soliloquies on his bowel movements (or lack thereof)
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Posted May 06, 2015in Film Review
Though he may have cleverly tricked you into thinking otherwise, Joss Whedon is, at his core, an action director. The reason he may have tricked you into thinking otherwise, is because there is no action director alive who manages to instill his heroes with such a sense of genuine humanity
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Posted April 29, 2015in Film Review
“Ex Machina” is a terrifying film. It does not get its sense of foreboding from jump scares or gore. There are no demons or ghosts or anything else traditionally scary anywhere to be found. Instead, “Ex Machina,” the directoral debut of screenwriter Alex Garland, is terrifying for two reasons: 1)
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Posted April 22, 2015in Film Review
When you start talking about the disappearance of Johnny Gosch, it can be difficult not to start sounding like a conspiracy theorist. The fact that a young boy could be taken from a street in the middle of West Des Moines and disappear so completely is odd enough. Add in
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Posted April 15, 2015in Film Review
In the 5th century B.C., Hippocrates, the father of the medicinal arts, laid out the code by which all physicians practice their art. Perhaps the greatest tenant therein: Do no harm. Do your job as well as you can, but above all else, make sure that no person walks out
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Posted April 08, 2015in Film Review
The franchise has developed a reputation for being a kind of dumb, kind of fun action franchise. But now that there are seven installments, I was genuinely curious as to whether or not one needed to be versed in the past iterations in order to fully enjoy the current one.
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Posted March 31, 2015in Film Review
Pint-size producer and documentarian Dick “The Stick” Prix (pronounced “Pree”) is renowned for his ability to take seemingly innocuous, clean-as-a-lilly subjects and find their dark sides. Take for instance his 2011 critically acclaimed documentary “Finders Keepers, Losers Sweepers,” a fascinating look the secret world of nighttime high school janitors, which
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Posted March 25, 2015in Film Review
For starters, here’s a caveat for this week’s review: I am not a teenage girl, so I acknowledge that I am not the target audience for “Insurgent.” Now, the caveat to my caveat: I am also not the target audience for “Frozen,” but I can still tell a good movie
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