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Manchester by the Sea (2016)
In its broad strokes,
Manchester by the Sea
doesn’t explore anything new...[but Lonergan] is the master of telling behavior and conversational nuance.
Doctor Strange (2016)
Doctor Strange
looks at urban architecture through a twisting digital kaleidoscope, next-stepping from
Inception
to an M.C. Escher-esque action aesthetic that amounts to three-dimensional chess.
by Sidney Lumet (2015)
Like Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's
De Palma
(also released in 2016),
by Sidney Lumet
has one undeniable result: it instills a fervent wish to watch the director's entire output from beginning to end...
Pinocchio (1940)
Expertly balances whimsy, adventure, terrifying perils, music, comedy, and warmth on the way to a reassuring worldview of moral order, of virtue rewarded and the bosom embrace of familial figures.
The Light Between Oceans (2016)
Cianfrance makes intimate, psychologically penetrating films, with quiet spaces and moments of brutal intensity...As unlikely as the story is, Cianfrance deftly steers the material through elemental themes...
Inferno (2016)
You won't ever find me calling
Inferno
a good movie, but I won't deny that, in dribs and drabs, it gets closer to the marks of fun and quality than I thought possible from this picturesque but dopey franchise.
xXx (2002)
Superficially, it resembles exhilarating action films of the past, but the paint-by-numbers approach just doesn't do the trick. With all-around bad acting, hyperactive production, and a script that passes 'camp' and goes right on through to 'bad'...
Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Hammer[s] home what the news media didn’t much convey in 2010: the human-level horror of being on the rig and the sheer scope of the unnaturalness of the enterprise.
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (2016)
Silly and rarely believable in any of its particulars...Andy Daly, though? Really funny.
Snowden (2016)
Born on the Fourth of July
for millennials...Stone effectively streamlines Snowden’s story for mass consumption, edification, and identification.
The BFG (2016)
Largely lifeless, which is unusual for fantasy material birthed by Roald Dahl or directed by Steven Spielberg, much less a combination of the two.
LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures—Complete Season One (2016)
Even adult Star Wars fans with enough of a sense of perspective to laugh at this not-overly-serious non-canonical storyline will have a good time.
Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season (2016)
The show's second season improves the spinoff (from more famous elder sibling
The Walking Dead
) in just about every respect...
Pete's Dragon (2016)
There's room enough for both
Pete's Dragon
s in this big old world.
Heart of a Dog (2015)
'Arty,' to be sure, but it's not pretentious: rather, it's expressive of the scattered state of mind, the reflective state of mind, that attends grief.
Don't Think Twice (2016)
Pinpoints a creative community that’s never been explored in a narrative film...its wistful, naturalistic presentation of a thirtysomething turning point—a forced maturation of sorts—rings true.
Macbeth (1948)
The graphic intensity of Orson Welles' black-and-white 1948 film of
Macbeth
, then, isn't merely for show, but a carefully considered symbolist staging for screen, meant to complement the Bard's immortal poetry.
Hands of Stone (2016)
The film works as well as it does on the strength of its acting. De Niro is in fine, grounded form, and his verbal sparring with Ramírez, [et al]...elevates the film, the overlapping dialogue highly effective in infusing naturalistic energy.
Don't Breathe (2016)
Once
Don’t Breathe
detonates its big twist...some audience members will feel the film stops being fun while others will feel the fun has started in earnest.
Lone Wolf and Cub (1972)
Could be fairly branded exploitation pictures in their quantity of sex and violence (and nudity and gore), but they also qualify as comic-book movies, and perhaps the first in the modernistic style to which we've become accustomed.
Morris from America (2016)
An amiable, gentle, light drama with coming-of-age and outsider elements...a movingly attentive Robinson has never been allowed to be this warm on screen.
Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016)
A gleeful exercise in nostalgia, a fun and family-friendly Batman story in its own right, and a running commentary on the character's flexible interpretation.
Preacher: Season One (2016)
As per a recurring Season One line, 'We're just getting started.'
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Lee brought a distinct elegance to the wuxia genre of mythic, lyrical martial arts pictures...a breathtaking visual and emotional experience for the viewer...
The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (1933)
Universal's new three-disc
The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection
Restored Blu-ray Edition offers the best chance yet on home video to appreciate the Brothers and their brand of anarchic, sometimes surreal comedy...
Duck Soup (1933)
For all its wild comic abandon,
Duck Soup
has darker implications than the usual Marx Brothers comedy and, as such, feels the most relevant and sharp in its satire.
Monkey Business (1931)
Keeps plot at a minimum, anarchy at a maximum, which is a good place to be for the fearless foursome of 1930s screen comedy.
Animal Crackers (1930)
More so than any of the other Paramount films,
Animal Crackers
is Groucho's picture.
Horse Feathers (1932)
The opening ten minutes of
Horse Feathers
have more laughs than most comedy features muster in their entirety. And there's more where that came from...
The Cocoanuts (1929)
Sophisticated absurdity and sublime nonsense.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Deep reserves of humor and heart...a sophisticated comedy with an often blazingly fast pace to its dialogue, a quintessential Gary Cooper performance in the title role, and an especially tenacious leading lady in Jean Arthur.
Angels & Demons (2009)
Try not to giggle when...Langdon is being called in for '[his] expertise, [his] erudition.' The guy from
Bachelor Party
? Just kidding, Tom, we love you—just not in this kind of pricy but conspicuously soulless crap.
Boyhood (2014)
Cinematic poetry...As that greatest of screen rarities—a potentially mainstream experimental film—the writer-director earns a bit of slack in gratitude for the strange and wonderful gift
Boyhood
is...
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Too measured to be lively, too skittish to be provocative, too dramatically slack to be more than a ploddingly literal book-on-film.
The Infiltrator (2016)
A sturdy but uninspired crime docudrama that’s neither convincingly colloquial nor thrillingly stylish.
Patterns (1956)
The main draw remains Serling, whose story seems every bit as relevant—indeed, more so—today. There is efficiency but also music in his theatrical language...
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)
The fact that
Mike and Dave
will inevitably turn into a rom com blunts its potential as a black comedy of comeuppance for the titular jerks.
Blood Simple (1984)
Simpleness and crime have consistently fascinated the pair, who may as well be praying at the temple of Atë...the Coens preach a healthy respect for the randomness and chaos that ensues from our desires.
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
As far as 'Classic Disney,'
Beauty and the Beast
pretty much has it all. Y'know, for kids (of all ages).
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
A direct sequel to
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
...a crazy-cool superhero team-up/smackdown movie to make
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
look like a tea party, and a franchise-launching introduction to the new Spider-Man...
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