Vishniac (video review)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nsusdz2zi8
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Tag: 1-and-a-half
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction is the most obnoxious film you’ll see all year. It’s loud, dumb, incoherent and endless. And yet, while it’s nearly identical to its predecessors it’s not nearly as bad. That is to say, while it still numbs your mind with explosions your mind comes to expect it. This fourth […]
Moms’ Night Out (2014)
There are no laughs in Moms’ Night Out. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Bupkis. Maybe there’s a smile, but that’s not exactly high praise. When you can say that about a comedy, it pretty much empties out the entire picture. Here’s a movie in which the only comic highpoint is a shout-out to Pinterest – it […]
Devil’s Knot (2014)
Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot is wholly unnecessary. Here is a fictionalized recreation of the brutal 1993 murders of three elementary school boys from West Memphis, Arkansas that has already been documented to death, first in Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s brilliant 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and then in […]
August: Osage County (2013)
August: Osage County is a miserable experience. For all it’s incredible acting talent, the story is a family drama about people so petty and hateful that sitting at their dinner table is like being on a crowded bus with a bunch of mean drunks. Trailers for this movie would have you assume that this is […]
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
There are few things more boring than sitting through a historical biopic written by a screenwriter who can’t find a narrative stream of history other than to turn it into a choppy highlight reel; second only to that is history that treads safe, uncomplicated, unchallenging waters. Lee Daniels’ The Butler suffers under the weight of […]
The Lone Ranger (2013)
Hey you, Silver . . . go aw-a-a-a-y! Are cowboy movies relevant anymore? In an era that covets Batman, Iron Man, Superman, Thor and The Avengers, is there really room for a dusty, out-of-date property like The Lone Ranger? Will kids care about a lawman of the old west? Calling it dusty and out-of-date might […]
Peeples (2014)
Ten seconds into Peeples, I realized that I had boarded a sinking ship. In the opening scene, Craig Robinson is revealed to be a guy who sings to kids at the library. Fine, but the song he’s singing is called “Speak It! – Don’t Leak It!” which, if I understood correctly, is a song that […]
Evil Dead (2013)
It takes a lot of nerve to advertise a horror movie as “The Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever See.” In this cynical, movie-drenched culture, when we often complain that there is nothing new under the sun, a line like that makes us walk into the theater thinking: “Okay . . . well . . […]
