THE GUILT TRIP:  Watch It At Home – Maybe If the Ride Were Bumpier, It Would Be More Interesting The odd thing about THE GUILT TRIP is that it doesn’t especially cater either to fans of Barbra Streisand (who would probably prefer a more over-the-top, diva-like experience, not to mention some singing) or those of Seth […]

  Maybe it’s time for a filmmaker who doesn’t give a damn about the Beat Generation to make the next movie about them.  Michael Polish’s BIG SUR joins last year’s On the Road as a Jack Kerouac adaptation that’s gorgeously filmed, performed with seriousness and commitment, and dramatically paralyzed.  (I missed this year’s other Sundance […]

  THE PURGE:  Watch It At Home – Dopey, Violent Allegory Nevertheless Packs a Punch THE PURGE is heavy-handed, borderline reprehensible nonsense–but that’s not to say it doesn’t work.  James DeMonaco’s trim (85 minutes, including credits) thriller is set in 2022, when virtually all crime and unemployment has been wiped out in a newly-restored United […]

  There is a reason, or at least an argument, for why almost everything in Paul Haggis’s THIRD PERSON feels synthetic and contrived–but I can’t make it here, because doing so would expose the film’s purported surprises.  And I’m not sure it really matters anyway, since even though, after the fact, one might be able to “justify” […]

  47 RONIN:  Not Even For Free – Another Big-Budget Hollywood Folly, Gift-Wrapped For Christmas 47 RONIN blows into town on unusually fetid winds of bad buzz.  It began filming something like 2 1/2 years ago under the direction of first-timer Carl Rinsch, who hails from commercials (naturally), and then had to be significantly reshot, […]

  A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST:  Not Even For Free – They Don’t Include “Die Laughing” Seth MacFarlane, out from behind his high-concept animated and fantasy premises, has a surprisingly retro, even conservative sense of humor.  For all the many, many four-letter words in A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST, and […]

  Ridley Scott’s THE MARTIAN is the jaunty sci-fi offspring of Apollo 13 and McGyver, Scott’s least self-important movie in years and not coincidentally his most enjoyable.  Drew Goddard’s expertly crafted script (based on the best-selling novel by Andy Weir) has a premise both simple and massively complex:  during a giant sandstorm on the surface […]

  THE CHILDREN ACT (no distrib):  It’s not intended as disparagement to Ian McEwan’s novel and screenplay adaptation, or to Richard Eyre’s film, that THE CHILDREN ACT feels much of the time like it could be the pilot for a high-toned television series featuring Emma Thompson as a compassionate jurist specializing in family law who […]