Big Screen
It would be one thing if Alabama drive-in theatre owner Carol Laney had refused to book Disney’s latest retread of Beauty and the Beast (Lickona liked the sets) based solely on a perceived lack of …
The Disney live-action Beauty and the Beast opens this week. It stars Emma Watson from the Harry Potter movies. You are almost certainly familiar with both the movie and its star, and you probably know …
It’s that time of year when one of San Diego’s top-tier cinematic showcases comes to town. The 24th San Diego Latino Film Festival brings with it, among other things, a return visit from the reigning …
Starting with the end, then: both Kong: Skull Island and Land of Mine take place in the aftermath of war. Kong is set just as America is pulling out of Vietnam, leaving Sergeant Sam Jackson …
It is the sworn duty of parents to instill within a child the three golden rules of moviegoing: Sit down, shut up, and enjoy the picture. Little more than a restaurant that shows movies, the …
Writer-director Martin Zandlivet’s terse, tense, and terrific post-WWII film Land of Mine establishes two of its three strengths immediately. First, star Roland Møller as Danish sergeant Carl Rasmussen, his eyes radiating barely controlled emotion from …
For those whose knowledge of Warren Beatty doesn’t extend much beyond last week’s unparalleled round of egg on Oscar’s face, it’s time to put in an appearance at Landmark’s Ken Cinema for their latest installment …
I liked the superhero movie Logan a lot, mostly because it was less about superheroes and more about keeping the flame of faith alive as the darkness closes in and about keeping civilization going by …
With 2013’s The Wolverine, director James Mangold took a near-immortal, adamantium-clawed (thanks to a combination of mutation and rogue science) superhero named Logan and stuck him in a Big Sleep–style mystery movie. The results were...unimpressive. …
As pressure from Congress grows for greater public understanding of exactly what Russia did to touch off this year’s Best Picture brouhaha, the White House and President Donald J. Trump have today ordered a full …
Narrative cinema rarely unearths heretofore overlooked historical truth, but three of least year’s releases — Denial, Hidden Figures, and now A United Kingdom — have their heart set on proving that adage wrong. Filmmaker Amma …
In A United Kingdom, a black man falls in love with a white woman, and their romance is tested by all sorts of opposing forces. In Get Out, a black man falls in love with …
"Four deadly tales directed by four killer women.” That’s the tagline for XX, the new horror anthology opening Friday at the Digital Gym. This type of press agent math never adds up. Has there ever …
There is no delight in being contrary for its own sake. It's as dishonest a critical move as quote-whore cheerleading. It cries out, "Hey, look at me!" when, of course, a critic's job is to …
Growing up in Chicago, Richie Keen would ride his bike down to where John Hughes was shooting Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and sneak onto the set. Later, he started as an actor before becoming a …
With Pirates of the Caribbean, Gore Verbinski took a silly-spooky theme park attraction and built it into a multibillion-dollar defense of bucking the system and living by your wits. With A Cure for Wellness, he …