Thunderous, ponderous and occasionally exciting, Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens with one of those grim proclamations that the creators of modern superhero movies are so fond of: “There was a time above, a time before,” intones the voice of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), over a by-now…
Have you ever considered the fact that, in 1951, Hank Williams actually wrote “Hey Good Lookin'”? That, for the first 175 years years of American history, those words and that melody weren’t already part of our shared heritage? Williams didn’t just pluck it out of the air, of course. Cole…
The joke was on me when I first saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding back in 2002: I watched the film at a press screening that also happened to be attended by a large group of older female tourists. While I grimaced through the movie’s obvious gags and not-ready-for-prime-time direction,…
The Chet Baker portrayed by Ethan Hawke in Robert Budreau’s misty biopic Born to Be Blue is midway between beauty and ruin. Behind him are the 1950s, when his easy virtuosity and matinee-idol looks swiftly took Baker from Charlie Parker’s sideman to major player on Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz label…
Prestige cable flatters us about the past. It lets us vacation in the backwardness of previous generations, usually while throwing some empathetic side-eye. Gape at Mad Men’s blithe white dudes, each convinced he earned every bit of authority he commands over women and minorities. Or thank Jezebel that we’ve evolved…
New Times picks the best things to do in metro Phoenix from March 21 through 24. Les Visiteurs Calling all people who shudder at the blasphemy of “freedom fries,” do a reasonable Amelie impression, and can’t help but click on the latest list of how to look as effortlessly stylish as…
Like the Juggernaut or St. Patrick’s Day drunks, nothing can stop the hundreds of hours of filmed superhero junk that hits our faceholes each year. But rest easy, true believer! Once in a while, the onslaught can still offer surprise and pleasure. A shiver of both hit me minutes into…
Take heart, Newsroom fans. If you were hankering for more scenes of Jeff Daniels standing around talking, you’ll find an unlikely ally in the new young-adult sci-fi sequel Allegiant, the third entry in the Divergent series based on Veronica Roth’s hit novels. Too bad the stuff he’s saying is so…
Each week, we’re recapping the first season of Fuller House, episode by episode. Violin music not included. A subtle, but significant difference between Fuller House and its predecessor is the length of the episodes. The commercial-free oasis of Netflix allowed the premiere episode to clock in at a whopping 36…
For the protagonists of cable dramas, sex and death are twin forces of titillation, pressure valves for frustrated middle-aged men or steely-eyed careerists. That’s also true for the audience of cable dramas, of course, but there’s a reason we eagerly pursue onscreen what often makes us squirm in real life:…
The Pee-wee Productions logo that kicks off the new Netflix film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday trumpets comedian-turned-actor Paul Reubens’ comeback as the formerly ubiquitous man-child. Forget about The Pee-wee Herman Show, Reubens’ fan-service-intensive Broadway extravaganza. Big Holiday (which premieres March 18 on Netflix) plays like an un–self-conscious continuation of the character’s…
In Arnaud Desplechin’s My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument, intimate relations with Marion Cotillard lead one character to a spiritual awakening. Later, protagonist Paul Dédalus (Mathieu Amalric) declaims on what he considers “the one pleasure” that will never go away in life: “the surprise when I…
Here’s a minor miracle. From tiny Lighthouse Pictures, which specializes in Hallmark Channel originals with Christmas in the title, comes Bob Nelson’s The Confirmation, a bittersweet comedy about family, faith and a young boy saving up all his minor sins so he’ll have something to dish at confession. The surprise?…
Nick Salerno liked to tell people he grew up in the dark. When he was a boy, Nick and his mother, a Sicilian immigrant, walked twice a week to the Cine Capri movie house together. She was there to improve her English by listening to American actors speak. Nick was…
Brash yet intimate, writer-director-editor Trey Edward Shults’ observant, unnerving first feature transcends the notion of a “promising debut.” Here, the promise is already fulfilled on the screen, which bustles with chaotic family life — and prickles with anxiety. Krisha is a heartsick family story that plays as psychological horror, its…
You’ve seen a lot of movies like Too Late, and yet you haven’t. Shot over several years on 35mm, Dennis Hauck’s neo-noir detective drama is only being shown theatrically in that increasingly rarefied format — a bold financial move for an independent film at a time when so many others…
In Jeff Nichols’ gripping domestic thriller Take Shelter, Michael Shannon played a family man convinced that Armageddon was upon us. But even as the character’s visions compelled him to take more and more extreme precautions, the film remained fixed in the world of the real. It was a portrait of…
The seemingly stark divide between sleep and wakefulness serves as the main motif in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendor, which allegorizes the history of Thailand as deepest REM slumber. Weerasethakul’s works are sensory delights, haunted, if obliquely, by Thailand’s violent political past and still fractious present. A film about the…
It may seem hard to believe, but Luck of the Irish premiered on the Disney Channel 15 years ago. It was part of the Disney Channel Original Movie renaissance, part of a slate of films targeted at teens. While many of them now exist only in our memory, this one,…
Ktown Cowboys indicates by its title both insider status and a desire to fit in. Ktown — short for Koreatown — refers to the Los Angeles neighborhood marked by art-deco buildings and Korean signage where the film is set. Though not actually known for cowboys, L.A. has for more than…
When everything’s a game, it’s easier to forget the wrongdoing perpetrated during play. We see this in sports, but we also see it in war, young men and women coping with stress by envisioning their targets as the bad guys in a first-person shooter. In Pablo Trapero’s bleak but occasionally…
This patchy comedy about a cossetted, obnoxious gymnast who has slid deep into sloth in the decade or so since her Olympic triumph gets an occasional laugh from the American ills it sends up: jingoism, the sports-industrial complex, home-schooling, fast-food gluttony. The scattershot jabs pepper the flaccid storyline of the…
