A Québécois and a Parisienne meet in a bar—in French Morocco during World War II, no less. Even without switching the nationalities, viewers of “Allied” will have a hard time not thinking about Ilsa Lund and Rick Blaine’s classic encounter 74 years ago. While director Robert Zemeckis’ latest patently aspires to be...
J.K. Rowling has revealed herself to be a superb Scribomagus. OK, so that wasn’t an actual magical ability in the Wizarding World, but the point is Rowling has indeed performed a flawless transformation from novelist to screenwriter. In other words, the “Harry Potter” author’s feature script debut is more Gillian...
A first encounter of the most stellar kind. In a case of life imitating art, this is also the director’s first contact with the sci-fi genre. Yet, with the same level of expertise in cinematic storytelling as the main character in analyzing languages, Denis Villenueve has made a film so personal, stimulating...
Cinematic sensuality, dear “Fifty Shades” franchise, is impactful in how the director portrays it and not through sticky, pre-release headlines. “The Handmaiden,” director Park Chan-wook’s latest tableau of vivid and borderline-sickening depravity, is a film that deserves to be in your collection. Despite frequent dips...
The sole thing the first “Ouija” established was a bar so low that the sequel had no choice but to raise it. As if knowing the task is too easy, director Mike Flanagan—who has contributed to the genre with “Absentia,” “Oculus” and “Hush”—chose to become an over-achiever. He and frequent writer Jeff Howard have given...
Found your brother, Hanna. He might even pass as your twin, too. Besides being Black List alumni and outcasts as protagonists, both have surprising amounts of humanity beneath the action garb. Under Gavin O’Connor’s direction, though, the tale of the accountant/badass has no time for fairy-tale symbolism and...
Chess changes circumstances. So can cross country, horse racing, baseball, football or any sport under the sun—leave it to Disney’s “Inspiring True Story” department to fashion it into a life-changing factor. There is a pattern across all productions as well: competent acting, fair visual flourishes and a...
You can now check “watching birds on caffeine” off your bucket list. I might have missed a scene where someone in Warner Animation Group’s sophomore effort consumes coffee, but maybe the drink was already drawn into them. Junior (Andy Samberg) is always mobile, delivering packages like a champ and is well on his way to...
Superman, you may now retire. That wasn’t hyperbole, by the way. Tom Hanks, alone, saved his crew from armed pirates in the Indian Ocean, swiftly conducted a high-profile prisoner exchange on Glienicke Bridge and, most recently, got all 155 souls accounted for after landing an Airbus A320 on the Hudson. Despite the...
TFW potentially thoughtful science aims for the kiddie pool. After many years and two failed attempts, researchers of synSECT Systems have made Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), a fully synthetic human that can express feelings. She is almost everything they designed — “almost” because they can’t seem to keep her violence in...
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