Film Reviews
Fly Away
Michael Keaton returns, and Birdman soars into the sky.KRISTIAN LIN
Remember the conversation in Neighbors this past summer, when Seth Rogen and Zac Efron’s characters argued about whether Michael Keaton or Christian Bale was the better Batman? It was telling — Rogen’s character is old en...
The Man with Two Horns
They should have called this movie The Devil and Daniel Radcliffe.KRISTIAN LIN
If Horns reminds you of old Stephen King movie adaptations like Christine, Cujo, and Stand By Me, that’s partly because it’s based on a novel by Joe Hill, who is King’s son. The setting has been shifted from the Kings’ ...
The Blackness Project
Dear White People, here’s a campus comedy crackling with racial tension.KRISTIAN LIN
Dear White People vividly reminds us of what we already know: It’s a complicated business growing up black in America. So many stereotypes have developed over the years that if you avoid one, you may very well fall into anoth...
Household Saint
A strong cast rescues St. Vincent from sentimental martyrdom.KRISTIAN LIN
Really, St. Vincent isn’t anything new. This working-class dramedy is a modestly budgeted independent film, but it’s the same sort of sentimental tripe that Hollywood would have made into something intolerable 20 years ago....
Gran Libro
The Book of Life celebrates Day of the Dead in style.KRISTIAN LIN
Hollywood doesn’t put out many movies about Latinos that are pitched toward a general audience, let alone ones that are aimed specifically at families. The last such films that Hispanics could hold up with pride to their non-...
Tank Busting
The World War II drama Fury is exhausting and not in a good way.KRISTIAN LIN
I rather liked David Ayer’s last film, the 2012 found-footage cop drama End of Watch. The financial success of that movie has allowed him to make Fury, a World War II film on a much bigger budget. Unhappily, the current movie...
Webb of Truths
The journalism drama Kill the Messenger misses its deadline by a decade or so.Kristian Lin
Through the first half of Kill the Messenger, I found myself thinking that this journalism drama would have blown me away if I’d seen it 15 years ago. And then I realized that I was wrong. This thing is too overheated and poo...
Contempt of Court
In being almost good, The Judge is infuriating.COLE WILLIAMS
When reviewing a movie called The Judge, there’s a temptation to use a really corny pun in the headline. “The Judge found guilty of mediocrity” or “The Judge sentenced to bad movie jail.” Stuff like that. Unless it’...
Amazing Amy
Gone Girl: Marriage is hell. Especially this one.Kristian Lin
By now, lots of ink has been spilled about how Ben Affleck’s years as a pop-culture punchline have suited him for the lead role in Gone Girl as a man who is demonized by the public and the media. The truth is, he probably did...
Kansas City Chief
A story of the Lost Boys of Sudan is reduced to pablum in The Good Lie.Kristian Lin
Reese Witherspoon bought the rights to Gone Girl and wanted to star in it until David Fincher convinced her otherwise. While staying on that film as a producer, she headlines another movie that comes out this week, The Good L...