ViewGuide

The War Against Islamist Terror gets short shrift in the nearly risible American Assassin, which starts well, powerfully well, but then goes mostly downhill. Quality aside: Sequel or No Sequel? That is the question. This origin story sets a low bar, yet made money, so why not a sequel. It’ll al…

A fantastic film cataloguing insanity, war and imperialism, Apocalypse Now is a sprawling, magnificent film that masterfully builds up dread and tension through its adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Atlas tried, again. If only Part II was double the fun or carried twice the load of Part I.

Instead, the new casting ends net neutral while the story remains mired in the Fifties.

Plus the sheer weight of putting on an economic thriller remains overwhelming. Still, all hail the attempt….

I find self-loathing shmucks more annoying than interesting. So Barney’s Version – about a dissolute TV exec played by the redoubtable Paul Giamatti – surprised me by deepening into an affecting and intriguing drama in its third reel. Based on Mordecai Richler’s final novel, its literary pedig…

My second watching of an unnecessary remake in the last few months, Ben Hur impressed far less than the Magnificent Seven. It just came across as another of those overly-long Roman era epic movies that nobody ever heard of until they showed up on Netflix playlists of B-side films.