Hardly Schwarzenegger’s finest hour (the late ’90s were a generally rough ride for ’80s-era action stars), but still a diverting good time if you’re willing to check your brain at the door. It’s not hardContinue reading

Reitman’s tragicomedy is a film of hard truths and no easy answers that saves some of its harshest surprises for the final moments, even as it lays the groundwork for better things to come. ReitmanContinue reading

Cameron’s long-awaited return to science fiction is as grand in scope, ambitious in production, and technologically advanced as we would expect. It is a Cameron film through and through, with its marriage of sophisticated, high-endContinue reading

Jeff Bridges delivers another of his thoroughly lived-in, transparent performances as Bad Blake, a scraggly 57-year-old country-and-western singer/songwriter who makes ends barely meet by playing gigs in bars and bowling alleys for an aging crowdContinue reading

Using the well-worn structure of the rousing sports drama, Eastwood’s effective but conventional cinematic history lesson illuminates one of the most important international developments of the latter half of the 20th century by establishing theContinue reading

The Coens’ darkly comic version of the story of Job is an at times sublime cinematic exploration of the inscrutable nature of earthly suffering and possibly the best mainstream treatment of that subject since WoodyContinue reading

The redundant title (a ninja is an assassin by definition) is clearly meant as a throwback to the dozens of low-budget, Golan-Globus-produced ninja movies that glutted video shelves and late-night cable television schedules in theContinue reading

The irony is that, in moving entirely into the realm of fantasy and animation with Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson has made his most recognizably human and emotionally moving film in years. His trademark quirk seemContinue reading

There is something inherently dangerous in stories that rely on black uplift resting on white shoulders, so even when a film like The Blind Side is based on a true story, it runs the riskContinue reading