Film Reviews
Lights On
Stellar performances and a solid script make this potential melodrama serious entertainment.COLE WILLIAMS
When Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) first sings, she’s a little girl in a talent competition performing Nina Simone’s “Blackbird.” She comes in second place, and her passionate stage mom Macy Jean (Minnie Driver) tells her to t...
Fredrick Alanzo Keeps the Faith
A Fort Worth native brings his first film back to North Texas.KRISTIAN LIN
After a long and circuitous route, Fredrick Alanzo is returning to North Texas this Friday for a local premiere of his film Signed, Sealed & Delivered. Currently living in Houston, the Fort Worth native conceived the work a...
Wild Black Yonder
Christopher Nolan reaches for the stars in Interstellar.KRISTIAN LIN
I know this much about Interstellar: Christopher Nolan wants to make a big, ambitious fantasy thriller for the popcorn crowd like he usually does but one that vibrates with love, hope, and optimism the same way that his Batman ...
Gone Girl
Laggies shows you Keira Knightley like you haven’t seen her before.KRISTIAN LIN
I like the new Keira Knightley. She’s so much more fun than the old one. The old one never would have played the sort of person who sees a giant Buddha statue in an Asian restaurant and twists the statue’s nipples while mak...
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...