Inflated dreams of fame and fortune, stemming from a genuine passion and an authentic talent, Patricia Dombrowski, better known as Killer P or Patti Cake$, is on a mission to explode onto the golden green stages of hip hop and bullet train out of her tiny New Jersey life as fast as she can.
Detroit, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal’s latest film, is tragically uneven. In trying to be all things to all people, it becomes nothing to anyone.
Director Steven Soderbergh has called his film, Logan Lucky, “Ocean’s 11’s inbred cousin.”
Good Time depends greatly on Robert Pattinson’s performance. He is electric, the fire in his eyes like the gas in the many neon tubes that light each scene.
In light of my current research on the horror genre, I am increasingly convinced that the reason we continue to see so many horror films in the twenty-first century is because they are providing the broader culture with a much-needed avenue for navigating the various traumas that seem to define much of contemporary life.
This film reminded me of my faith community and our initial reluctance to accept the other, especially if we see the other as strange or peculiar (or sinful?!). Fear reigns in many parts of the American church, especially when a character like James enters and challenges the status quo.
Wind River is a compelling film. It’s like Beowulf or Njal’s Saga. I mean that in the most complimentary sense possible.
Step is inspiring because it shows one of America’s core myths in action – if you work hard and get a good education, you can rise from the station you were born in to a higher station.
I’ve long defended director Luc Besson’s work. His movies revel in the idea of being movies. He handles genre material with evident glee, and his directorial hand is sure.
Dunkirk is, on one level, a straightforward recapitulation of the rescue of over three hundred thousand English troops off the shores of France by private, English fishing and pleasure vessels in the early days of World War II.
Caesar was our “Caesar” in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Now he’s our “Moses.”
Refreshingly, Homecoming’s real “home” is in the high school portions of this movie, which work so well that the audience is left wishing that this weren’t even a superhero movie but just a high-school comedy.
Chasing Coral is compelling. It makes you want to do whatever you can to steward this planet better, as God called us to do.
This film could have been more about the mystical experience “on the other side,” but instead it focuses on the experiences of life we do our best to avoid—authentic grieving or serious contemplation about life’s meaning—and the experiences we tragically let pass us by—the gift of being present with someone we love.
The Big Sick is an excellent comedy – no, it’s an excellent film, no qualification needed. It’s the kind of film that deserves to show up on top ten lists at the end of the year.
The promise of liberation comes, for the women, in the form of a wounded Union soldier. For the school’s matron, he is an opportunity to put their Christian convictions into practice…
Baby Driver delivers.
This isn’t a desperate film. It is comfortable resolving story threads in ways they would resolve in real life. Just when you think the movie is going to take a wrong step and veer into a most banal territory, The Hero shifts back into the wisdom that makes it an exceptional film.
Cars 3 mostly works. The emotional pull associated with the passing away theme is resonant—“death and taxes,” you know?—and the movie has one stand-out sequence involving a demolition derby. The movie isn’t peak Pixar though.
Over the course of the evening Beatriz transitions from gentle aloofness to concentrated disgust. To communicate her growing discomfort with Doug and the others, Hayak holds tension in her facial expressions and gait, saving the screaming and rage for the right moments.
There’s swearing, there’s sex, and there’s harsh name-calling along the way too. Movies that we traditionally associate as celebrating “family values” maybe aren’t as crass, heavy, and vulnerable as this movie, but I think that indicts us more than it does this film.