Here’s an odd thing to say of a lavishly expensive 3D IMAX maritime disaster flick that hits theaters just a month after the last one: They don’t make them like this anymore. There’s a reason for that, of course — the parents and grandparents who like ’em stolid and corny…
There are worse ways for a television star to transition into film than a horror movie. There are also better movies to do it in than The Boy. Still, Lauren Cohan of The Walking Dead shines bright in William Brent Bell’s dim genre exercise, a vital presence opposite a lifeless…
There’s essentially one joke in the Kung-Fu Panda movies. A ridiculous, adorable creature executes some extravagant action-flick flourish — vaulting over roofs, dropping a bad guy, striking a poster-perfect superhero pose. Then the battle music fades and that adorable creature breaks badass character to remind us it’s totally relatable, even…
When alternative arts collective Bedlam Lorenz Assembly (BLA) curates a show, viewers are in for a hip, well-thought-out, immersive experience that’s bold and, oftentimes, absurd. The latest and perhaps most ambitious endeavor to date is Saturday’s opening of “Attempts at Autonomy.” The group exhibition, curated by newcomer Jesse Firestone and…
“Every film is a documentary of its actors,” Jean-Luc Godard once said. Starring Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, Andrew Haigh’s shattering marital drama 45 Years expands that maxim: As we gaze at and listen to these performers, whose characters reflect on nearly a half-century together — almost as long as…
What are the limits of representation? That’s a moral question that hovers over any depiction of the Final Solution, and it’s not considered lightly by László Nemes’ Son of Saul, which turns unimaginable horrors into tangible ones. By venturing inside the death factory of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nemes risks greeting obscenity with…
Call it a dissenting opinion if you must, but Dirty Grandpa has sporadic moments of hilarity: the spontaneous “USA! USA!” chant that erupts after an out-of-his-mind Zac Efron announces to spring breakers that he’s just unknowingly smoked crack, or Aubrey Plaza commanding as foreplay that Robert De Niro, as the…
“Who can give me the derivative of X?” a high-school teacher asks early in the YA-apocalypse mashup The 5th Wave. As soon as she asks that, the lights blink off, everybody’s cellphones die and jets tumble from the sky. We never hear a student respond, but here’s my Official Fan…
Like many professional creatives, Kristen Holeman doesn’t like to define what she does. “I have a dilemma,” recounts the Venezuelan-born, Fort Lauderdale resident. “I don’t call myself a jeweler. I don’t call myself an artist.” Since 1974, Holeman has worked nonstop, handcrafting non-traditional jewelry in metals and enamel, which have…
In 1961, Dwight Eisenhower famously left the White House with a warning to the American public about the rise of the military-industrial complex. When Barack Obama exits the Oval Office next year, he wouldn’t be remiss in cautioning the nation about the conspiracy-industrial complex, which has dug its tentacles into…
Thursday, January 21 Maybe it started with the elaborate expansion plans for the Norton Museum. Or was it this winter’s Canvas outdoor museum show that brought over 20 artists from around the world to craft boldly colored murals on the exteriors of downtown buildings? If it seems like West Palm…
In a sense, Andy Warhol was as much a symbol of the pop culture he celebrated as he was an artist whose work helped define it. With his pale complexion, white wig, and soft-spoken demeanor, he represented everything that was surprising and unusual about art and music in the ’50s,…
An admirably complex tale of time travel, corporate espionage and high emotions you’ll just have to take everyone’s word on, Jacob Gentry’s science-fiction puzzler Synchronicity is so ambitious — and so canny, on occasion — that you might be willing to forgive its indie infelicities. The acting is iffy, especially…
The movie they’re selling isn’t the movie this is. Sony Pictures Classics is peddling Nicholas Hytner’s film of Alan Bennett’s play and memoir The Lady in the Van like it’s the usual twinkly Best Exotic time-with-our-elders holiday entertainment. There’s Maggie Smith, dressed up as what my grandmother used to call…
Benghazi is a hashtag battle cry, a call to arms that many Americans don’t understand. Unlike the simplicity of “Remember the Alamo!” a bleat of “Benghazi!” still has people wondering, “Wait, what happened? And why are we mad?” Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi has an explanation,…
Critics rarely receive love from filmmakers. Last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner, Birdman, featured a vengeful harpy of a theater reviewer (played by Lindsay Duncan) hellbent on annihilating a play before she’d even seen it. Birdman was joined in its release year by other unfair portraits of critics in Top…
Alan Rickman has died at the age of 69. To Americans of a certain generation, he’ll always be Hans Gruber from Die Hard; to those of a slightly fresher vintage, he’ll never not be Severus Snape. But it was his ability to transcend the typecasting of those iconic roles that…
MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles is gorgeous and lunkheaded, gory and hilarious, sometimes awful and sometimes full of awe. It’s also quite welcome: Just as Terry Brooks tore the pompousness out of Tolkien with his pulpy, brick-thick Shannara novels, the series – executive produced by Jon Favreau – shows your Game…
Thursday, January 14 In the age of information and communication, learning how to do almost anything isn’t too difficult. The internet is vast, and expert (as well as not-so-expert) knowledge goes deep. Making good beer, however, takes some hands-on experience. Sure, you can learn the steps and list of ingredients,…
If you’ve paid any sort of attention to television in the last two decades, you should know who Mo Rocca is. You might know him as a correspondent with The Daily Show or, most recently, from starring alongside Charles Osgood with CBS Sunday Morning. Journalism wasn’t exactly his original forte, yet…
Rick Allen lost his left arm in a horrific Corvette wreck in 1984 — but that didn’t stop him from working as the drummer for English rock band Def Leppard. He carried on with a custom-made, cutting-edge drum kit and led the band through its most successful single, “Pour Some…
A sure-bet time-waster with a clutch of big laughs? A 100-minute brief on Hollywood’s lack of imagination? Grist for future essays about how quickly the idea of Ice “Fuck tha Police” Cube playing a gun-happy hero cop became routine? Whatever you make of Ride Along 2 beforehand is certain to…
