![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Minions aren’t just evil, they’re bad, or at least their movie is bad. It’s a children’s movie and I’m an adult, sure. But other kiddie pix work for parents as well as kids, and not just those from Pixar. Part of the problem is that the villain is more ridiculous than scary and isn’t funny a… |
||||||
![]() Even the great Maggie Smith can’t save The Lady in the Van. Let’s repeat: Dame Maggie can’t save it! Perhaps that’s because she plays an angry old woman who’s beyond saving, sad as that common sight is. Disclosure: I saw The Lady in the Van on the little tilt-down screens of a 737. It kind…
WikChip Image
Dame Maggie gets wasted.
|
||||||
![]() Harry Potter echoes throughout The Man Who Knew Infinity, the biopic of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a math wizard from humble circumstances who rose to prominence at an opulent and august English institution. Set in the ornate halls of 1910s-era Trinity College, it profiles an amazingly able – and rea…
WikChip Video
Who was Ramanujan? Math Wizard
|
||||||
![]() Tragically hip alt-rock crosses over into madness in the under-titled Frank, about a charismatic band leader and his devoted bandmates. Here’s the thing: Frank wears a large fake head, all the time. Starting in Britain, Frank’s band brings on a guileless recruit before decamping for Ireland,…
WikChip Image
Frank plays guitar.
|
||||||
![]() A father of computer science and nerdy war hero makes a fine subject for a rather dreamy biopic. Oh yeah, Alan Turing was also a persecuted gay man, back when homosexuality was criminalized in Great Britain. The Imitation Game thus has several storylines running through it, perhaps explaining w…
WikChip Image
The real Alan Turing, with a rare smile
|
||||||
![]() |
||||||
![]() The same brilliant, depraved and amoral crew who brought us Kick-Ass have now delivered Kingsman: The Secret Service, another comic take on a well-trod movie topic. James Bond movies are the inspiration this time. The result is tremendously entertaining, albeit as sordid as it is sleek. And i…
WikChip Video
Samuel L. Jackson talks Evil Genius
|
||||||
![]() The Who get deconstructed in the cheeky documentary Lambert & Stamp, about Kit Lambert & Chris Stamp, the fifth & sixth members of the band. Whimsy, rockstar excess, sex and drugs and money, lots of money, inform the stories that get exuberantly recounted by Pete Townshend, Roger Daltry, Chris …
WikChip Video
Kit accuses Pete of vanity.
|
||||||
![]() The hero of many a Tom Clancy story gets rebooted in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a more than competent action thriller. Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley and Kenneth Branagh are much more than competent as its starring quartet, allowing the movie to draw from a deep well of moviestar…
WikChip Image
Branagh the Dir employs a killer villain
|
||||||
![]() Terrifically well-conceived SciFi Fantasy is rare. Add an ageless superstar in a role ideal for his particular set of skills, opposite a beautiful screen-queen making her buffed-up action debut, in a 3D production up to the challenge of visualizing time travel and interplanetary war, and you’re …
WikChip Image
Emily & Tom howling at Comic-Con
|