A highly satisfying and only slightly dirty-dealing cat-and-mouse game, or really cat-and-cat, that opposes two feminine archetypes, the contemporary career woman (and not without personal sacrifices: "You're not a happy person," her boss observes) and the classical femme literally fatale, the independent and the parasite, the equal-rights competitor and the …
In many ways, this is the best James Bond picture since Daniel Craig assumed the role. Imagine two sibling 007s for the price of one: Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and her little sister (a feisty, pug-nosed Florence Pugh). The act of leaving home to find a home among superhero freaks …
The black-leather, kung-fu, one-man-army vampire-hunter out of Marvel Comics, outfitted with special guns, knives, needles, and samurai sword which Van Helsing knew nothing about. ("Crosses," explains the hero's personal weapons-maker, "don't do squat.") Wesley Snipes practically boogies his way through the action scenes; and the disintegrating bodies, exploding heads, etc., …
Manji (Takuya Kimura), a proficient samurai consumed by the slaughter of his mentally challenged younger sister, accepts a girl’s request to find the men who killed her father and raped her mother. (Hana Sugisaki co-stars in the dual role of Manji’s sister and employer). Even before the opening title card …
Two of the more socially conscious of cinematic genres — science fiction and the detective story — have been mated to produce a future-generation Los Angeles (A.D. 2019) that looks like Tokyo or Hong Kong gone to seed. The detective work is somewhat scamped, except for a good scene (echoing …
Director Denis Villeneuve’s gorgeous, gargantuan sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 neon-noir about what happens when humanity creates its own superior. People are notoriously fragile, fickle things; if we go giving intelligence to something more durable and dependable, what do we have left to brag about? The answer, this time around: …
Two of the more socially conscious of cinematic genres — science fiction and the detective story — have been mated to produce a future-generation Los Angeles (A.D. 2019) that looks like Tokyo or Hong Kong gone to seed. The detective work is somewhat scamped, except for a good scene (echoing …
Competitive figure skating gets the Will Ferrell treatment: rough and rude. Banned for life from the men's division, two bitter rivals (the macho Ferrell, the femme Jon Heder) return to the ice through a loophole as the first-ever male pair. The main source of humor is your presumed nervousness about …
Third installment in the god-awful series about the preening and posturing vampire-hunter out of Marvel Comics. The previous installment at least had the curiosity of a slumming Guillermo del Toro at the helm. He, in the meantime, took his slumming elsewhere (Hellboy), leaving the scriptwriter of the first two installments, …
Found-footage horror hit The Blair Witch Project has already spawned a sequel (Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows), a spinoff (Doc. 33), a comic book series, and a trio of video games. But when the original makes $248 million on a budget under $1 million, you can bet there's interest …
Shoestring independent production that purports to be the "found" footage of a trio of student filmmakers who disappeared in the Maryland woods while shooting a documentary on a local ghost story. It shows an intelligent awareness of its own limitations, and a practical aptitude for making do. There is, to …
Shoestring independent production that purports to be the "found" footage of a trio of student filmmakers who disappeared in the Maryland woods while shooting a documentary on a local ghost story. It shows an intelligent awareness of its own limitations, and a practical aptitude for making do. There is, to …
Quits being a drooling travelogue just often enough and long enough to be a drooling sex comedy. Two middle-aged fathers take their full-grown daughters on holiday; one of the fathers has an affair with one of the daughters (not his own). This comes about (Dad blame it!) because the daughter …