Movie Reviews
High-Rise, adapted from the novel by J.G. Ballard, begins as its story ends — with the handsome, introspective lead character (Tom Hiddleston) picking through the rubble of a broken building, finding a dog, bringing it …
The good readers at RottenTomatoes.com are once again accusing me of whoring for clicks by giving only one star to a highly anticipated blockbuster. It’s happened a number of times before, most notably with Star …
Garry Marshall got his start in television and hasn’t evolved one artistic iota since his days producing derivative spinoffs — a small-screen version of The Odd Couple and Happy Days, TV’s answer to American Graffiti. …
Allow me a moment to speak in defense of a man who needs no defending — or rather, whose music needs no defending. Keanu marks the second movie this year that has employed George Michael’s …
Fear no art! The shibboleth must not have made its way to Songzhuang, a suburb of Beijing and home to China’s largest “artists village.” One day before the curtain is scheduled to go up on …
An email arrived late Friday, asking that I consider reviewing a particular film at this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase, running April 28–May 5 at UltraStar Mission Valley. The subject matter held …
Next time I see Mr. Marks, I’m gonna check his medication. How else to explain his recent run of rapturous ratings? Remember and Cemetery of Splendor pulled back-to-back five stars, and now, after a brief …
Concerto — A Beethoven Journey is a new documentary exploring the piano concertos of Beethoven. The movie plays on Tuesday, April 26, at the Town Square Reading Theater in Clairemont and the Angelika Film Center …
The Miles Davis moment continues. The jazz (sorry, social music) trumpet legend and subject of director, star, and co-writer Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead already showed up for a sort of preview appearance in last week’s …
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned much in the yawping about the huge week two dropoff (69%!) for Batman v Superman: Yawn of Justice: there was practically nothing else to see last week — at …
If there is indeed only one chance at making a good first impression, then an impeccable introductory shot is as essential to a film’s narrative as a lashed Windsor knot and highly reflective pair of …
You know what was almost as exhausting as watching (and then having to think about) Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? Reading all the Fans v Critics: Dust of Cheetos thinkpieces and rage-comments in the …
Remember, a genre mashup of four of contemporary cinema’s least desirable storylines, should represent everything we’ve spent the past three decades at the movies trying to forget. And yet... When was the last time you …
Crop Failure The most obvious damage done to a movie that has been trimmed, cropped, to fit the TV space, is to the composition of the images. It is like a museum trying to fit …
Film critic David Elliott introduced me to the Chilean original Pablo Larrain, now on his fifth feature, The Club, which opens Friday at Landmark Hillcrest. A Post-It affixed to a San Diego Film Festival screener …
Writer and co-director Charlie Kaufman’s stop-motion animated film Anomalisa is a very fine portrait of the despair at the heart of a comfortable middle-aged white man in America circa right about now. British-born Michael Stone …