John Wick Would Like You to Hold His Bullets with Your Face
If John Wick is trying to teach his enemies a lesson, here is what it is: your face is not a secure receptacle for bullets.
Category Archives: Pithy Reviews
Listen Up Philip Is Successfully Insufferable
And I quote: “Alex Ross Perry has injected a particular strain of vitality into the New York independent film scene, having made two idiosyncratic features that beat to a relentlessly personal rhythm that is almost shocking in its distinctness.”
A Bucket of Blood: Roger Corman’s Beatnik Murder Comedy
Given $50,000, leftover sets from a high school movie, and five days to shoot by American International Pictures, could Roger Corman direct a horror movie?
Citizenfour: Edward Snowden, as It Happens
When Laura Poitras, after receiving encrypted emails from Snowden, came to meet him in Hong Kong with her camera, she did us all an immense favor.
Fury: Tanks for Nothing
Prepare to get furious for all the wrong reasons.
The Green Prince; The Great Price
One half of this film is about the life of Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas leader, betrayer of his people, inside-out savior assailant.
10 Secrets About The Boxtrolls
This film is perfect for your kids, who, if you didn’t take them to the movies, would likely be down by the river poking some dead thing with a stick.
In Which I Review The First 19 Minutes of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
A penetrating look at what may, or, let’s not be coy here, may not, be the most important 19 minutes in the history of film.
God Help the Girl Makes You Pop
The film is like a wistful fruit, pulverized down to pulp so you can swallow deep and let the juice stain your lips
Calvary Makes You Cross
Calvary pokes your conscience with a stick to see if it’ll twitch. Depending on the answer, you might laugh or get cross. Or both.
Blue Ruin: A Man, A Car, And Lots of Dead People
The question Blue Ruin brought to mind was something nebulous about what makes a movie “good.” Because, on the one hand, Blue Ruin is in many ways a very good movie. On the other, it’s not really about anything other than being a good movie.
The Kill Team, the Act of Killing, and Murder Most Foul
All the while, there behind him, within him, is the cold flint of war scraping relentlessly for a spark.
Woody Allen Makes Magic In The Moonlight
In which, like the fabled groundhog, Woody Allen emerges to enact his yearly ritual: the presentation of a new movie.
Beware Of Mr. Baker: On The Invention Of The Rock Drummer
In which Ginger Baker, the original madman drummer, is exhumed for our examination. So to speak.