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Mary Poppins Returns Review: More Sugar than Medicine

Jason Gorber — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:00:34 +0000

The title of Mary Poppins Returns perfectly encapsulates just what you’re going to get from this sequel to Disney’s live-action/animation classic. Unapologetically nostalgic, Rob Marshall’s new musical feels like a film out of time. Save for some technological improvements and a more diverse cast, this could have comfortably emerged intact some five decades ago. From...

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‘Paddington 2’ Review: More Charm Than You Can Bear

Philip Brown — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 13:00:59 +0000

2014’s ‘Paddington’ was a little miracle of a movie. Contemporary filmmakers were able to take Michael Bond’s dated and almost impossibly earnest creation and make it work for modern audiences thanks to just the right mixture of humor, whimsy and honest emotion. Surely it would be impossible for co-writer/director Paul King to pull that off...

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‘The Lobster’ Review: My Big Fat Greek Surreal Allegorical Satire

Philip Brown — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 19:00:24 +0000

The best part of sitting down to enjoy a new feature by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos (‘Dogtooth‘, ‘Alps’) is knowing that there’s no point in having expectations. Lanthimos doesn’t make movies or tell stories quite like anyone else, and his first star-studded English language feature ‘The Lobster’ is just as delightfully insane, emotionally devastating, and...

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‘In the Heart of the Sea’ Review: Troubled Waters

Philip Brown — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:00:18 +0000

Some 3D movies would benefit from an alternative screening option that allows audiences to see a highlight reel of the set-pieces in IMAX for $10 instead of the entire film. The ‘Transformers’ movies certainly qualify, as did Robert Zemeckis’ unfortunate ‘The Walk’, and now Ron Howard’s ‘In the Heart of the Sea’. The whaling action...

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‘Spectre’ Review: A Bond-Sized Victory Lap

Philip Brown — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 20:00:40 +0000

At its best, the Daniel Craig era of James Bond has been all about reinvention. ‘Casino Royale’ kicked things off with an origin story that allowed the Bond conventions to be twisted through the character’s inexperience. In ‘Skyfall’, Sam Mendes reverently deconstructed and toyed with the iconic images and elements of the series. (‘Quantum of...

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‘Suffragette’ Review: Impassioned, If Predictable

Philip Brown — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 13:00:16 +0000

‘Suffragette’ is a tricky movie. On the one hand, there’s no denying the importance of its themes (which have oddly not been properly dramatized before), the talent of the actress at the center, or the handsome nature of the production. However, the film never extends beyond the basics. It’s merely as straightforward an introduction to...

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TIFF Journal: ‘The Lobster’

Philip Brown — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 17:00:56 +0000

There’s no real way to prepare yourself for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest oddball odyssey ‘The Lobster’, with the possible exception of a familiarity with the director’s previous works ‘Dogtooth‘ and ‘Alps’. The filmmaker walks a peculiar line between absurdist humor and bleak social commentary that’s entirely his own. Even though his latest feature is his first...

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‘Paddington’ Review: Tons of Charm, No Padding

Philip Brown — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 20:00:05 +0000

There are so many reasons why ‘Paddington’ shouldn’t work as a movie. Chief among them, of course, is the fact that this is a contemporary CGI-fueled update of a quaint old children’s book series. We’ve been down that road countless times before, and this should be yet another example of that endlessly disappointing trend in...

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