If there’s one thing that scientists should have learned from Marie Curie, it’s that you don’t take your work home with you. So when the characters in David Gelb’s The Lazarus Effect take a dog that they managed to resurrect…
Movie Review: ‘McFarland, USA’
The question at hand isn’t whether or not Niki Caro’s McFarland, USA is formulaic. For all underdog sports team movies, from Hoosiers (1986) to Remember the Titans (2000), from The Bad News Bears (1976) to The Mighty Ducks (1992), uses it. Instead,…
Movie Review: ‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’
Lou Dorchen (Rob Corddry), in Steve Pink’s Hot Tub Time Machine 2, is the most repugnant lead character in a comedy since Donny Berger (Adam Sandler) in Sean Anders’ That’s My Boy (2012). And do you know who Donny Berger…
The Film Canon: The Killer (1989)
The assassin sits alone in the church, quite, contemplative, and silent. Lightning flashes in the flickering glow of the candles as he studies the face of the Virgin Mary. A man sits next to him. “Do you believe in God?”…
The Film Canon: Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998)
“Mother! Bring me into the world,” the child cries from within his mother’s womb. “A child who can speak from his mother’s womb can bring himself into the world,” the mother quietly replies. A tiny child crawls from between her…
Movie Review: ‘Black or White’
In the past year, race relations have reclaimed the spotlight in America’s politisphere. And curiously, 2014 saw the release of two seminally important examinations of racism in modern America: Justin Simien’s Dear White People and Ava DuVernay’s Selma. I use…
Movie Review: ‘Strange Magic’
Gary Rydstrom’s Strange Magic is a nice film. But, as Mr. Sondheim reminds us, nice is different than good. It is a nice film for several reasons, chief among them being the central plot itself. Predictably for a film based…
