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Ma Review: Don’t Make Her Drink Alone

Deirdre Crimmins — Fri, 31 May 2019 12:00:57 +0000

Ma is a rare gem of a horror film. Its cast is award-winning and its premise is promising, but despite this pedigree it never takes itself too seriously. Maggie and her mom Erica (Diana Silvers and Academy Award nominee Juliette Lewis) are moving back to mom’s hometown after a divorce. We get hints through their...

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‘The Alienist’ Pilot Recap: “I’m Not Here for Savory Business”

Josh Zyber — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 13:00:14 +0000

Paramount tried for over two decades to launch a big-budget movie adaptation of Caleb Carr’s bestselling 1994 historical mystery thriller ‘The Alienist’, but every attempt fell through until the project eventually got shifted to television. It finally premiered this week on the TNT cable network in what is described as a 10-part limited event series...

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‘Professor Marston and the Wonder Women’ Review: The Lasso of Truth

Philip Brown — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 18:30:07 +0000

Rushed into production to hit theater screens the same year as the long-awaited ‘Wonder Woman’ blockbuster, ‘Professor Marston and the Wonder Women’ stinks of Oscar bait exploitation on the surface. However, that’s only true if you’re unfamiliar with the story behind the first and finest superheroine. This is a wild and (please excuse the pun)...

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‘Beauty and the Beast’ (2017) Review: Pretty but Superfluous

Philip Brown — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 12:00:18 +0000

While Jon Favreau’s high-tech take on ‘The Jungle Book’ may have reinvented enough elements of the Disney animated classic to justify its existence, the live-action reboot of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ feels like little more than a restaging of the 1991 cartoon triumph. It’s nice enough and pretty enough, but why does this need to...

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‘The Girl on the Train’ Review: Be Gone, Girl…

Philip Brown — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 13:00:10 +0000

Some bad movies remind you how good another movie was. ‘The Girl on the Train’ is one of those. This marital murder melodrama based on a bestseller is remarkably reminiscent of ‘Gone Girl’ and likely only exists because of that movie’s success. Unfortunately, ‘The Girl on the Train’ lacks all the wit, morbid humor and...

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‘High-Rise’ Review: Twisted Anarchy

Philip Brown — Wed, 18 May 2016 19:00:10 +0000

J.G. Ballard’s disturbing dystopic novel ‘High-Rise’ almost made it to the screen a few times since the cult favorite hit stands in the 1970s. Despite having filmmakers like Nicolas Roeg behind the project, nothing ever came to fruition, and given the difficulty of the subject matter it’s easy to see why. Thankfully, the book finally...

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TIFF Journal: ‘High-Rise’

Philip Brown — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 18:00:02 +0000

In only a handful of movies, director Ben Wheatley has established himself as one of the most fascinating and unpredictable filmmakers working today. Titles like ‘Kill List’, ‘Sightseers’, and ‘A Field in England’ offer wildly different cinematic experiences that share only the director’s distinct voice. His latest feature ‘High-Rise’ is his first adapted from a...

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‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ Review: Been There, But Back Again

Philip Brown — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 14:00:06 +0000

Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy might not be as strong as his ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, but at least it isn’t another ‘Star Wars’ prequel debacle. Now that all of the tedious set-up has finally passed, Jackson delivers a feature-length climax that is easily the best entry of this elongated ‘Hobbit’ trio. Everything that’s...

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‘Dracula Untold’ Review: Dracula Defanged

Philip Brown — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:00:43 +0000

When you think of Dracula, you conjure up of one of the great personifications of evil in pop culture. Romantic? Sure. Tragic? I suppose. But still a villain and certainly a figure of evil. Yet Universal’s new Dracula reboot says patooey to popular myth and refashions Dracula as a misunderstood action hero with a pesky...

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