There’s no driving force when it comes to the characters. We suspend disbelief that Mike would be remotely interested in this life-threatening operation for which he has no true technical skills solely out of nostalgic romance and maybe a hint of patriotic duty (the latter of which is not far off but assumed more for … Read more
If the splendid cinematic tradition of LA-based movies has taught us anything in the past century, it is that everyone hopes for something grand in the perennially sunny City of Dreams. Hope is no different, after years of building a reliable stable of beauty and wellness clientele in her image-obsessed city of bare-midriffed hikers and … Read more
Among all the other things it is, “Rob Peace” is a portrait of a type of extraordinary individual whose prodigious gifts are yoked into service by others who don’t have such gifts. Rob’s father is the number one example—watch how he goes from being tearfully grateful for his son’s help to seeming like he feels entitled … Read more
There’s an ugly truth to Paul’s interactions with Sam, who tries his best to let the microaggressions roll off his back but eventually has to stand up for himself and point out the obvious: He just wants to be treated as a human being whose very existence doesn’t require explanations and reassurance, just like everyone … Read more
Danny creates an account on Rubi “for research,” not admitting to himself that somewhere deep inside, he might be hoping to find a girlfriend. He crops a photo to show him only from the shoulders up, concealing the scooter, posts his profile, and, he admits to Jason, he swipes on a few. He gets one response … Read more
Other than that, anything goes. Participants can use knives, clubs, broken bottles, bats, chains, rubber hoses, spears, curtain rods, mop handles, and presumably automobiles (though I don’t recall anyone trying to run anyone down deliberately, which seems like a strange omission in retrospect). They can hunt alone or in groups, even very large groups. Awkwafina … Read more
There’s a definite sense that Alvarez is going back to the basics of Scott’s first film (which is a good thing). Once again, we’re introduced to a crew of interstellar blue-collar workers, led by a heroine who we know will be forced to mine veins of courage in herself that she didn’t know were there. … Read more
The conundrums of life are given a rather more conventional depiction in this fictional biographical film, directed by James Marsh, whose reductive work on Stephen Hawking in his 2014 “The Theory of Everything” doesn’t exactly give one hope that he’ll do Beckett justice. Shot in black-and-white, the movie almost giddily partakes in components that Beckett’s … Read more
The movie doesn’t go in the other direction, either, and become the decadently committed wallow in ephemeral pleasures it could’ve gotten away with being. (The audience is going to be 95 percent people who like the band and/or jazz-adjacent music anyway.) There are references to internal conflicts that the band had over the years but it’s not delved … Read more
The remarkably boring Charlotte Kirk plays Scarlett Monaghan, a woman approached by a suave gentleman named Robert McNaughton (Philip Winchester) while out with her deadly dull boyfriend at the club one night. Robert and Scarlett have instant chemistry, so they pretty quickly dispatch with Mr. Wrong and begin a steamy affair before Scarlett discovers how … Read more