Some movies are torture. "Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar" is like jumping off a comedy cliff and finding yourself forever cringing in the world where jokes never land. Even Kristen Wiig can't save you. Some movies are about torture. THE MAURITANIAN is a film that doesn't tell us anything we didn't already [...]
For a late October weekend-- two movies whose houses are haunted: REBECCA and THE NEST. I have always loved the original-- Alfred Hitchcock's Oscar-winning gothic masterpiece REBECCA based on Daphne du Maurier's novel about wealthy widower Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) who brings his new wife (Joan Fontaine) home to his sprawling English country estate, [...]
HURRY: Free passes to 101 Studios release: "BURDEN"! BURDEN ADVANCE SCREENING – BOSTON Monday, February 24th AMC Boston Common 7:00 PM For your first come, first server pass for two, please click: https://gofobo.com/JoycesChoicesBurden 101 Studios will release BURDEN in theaters MARCH 6, 2020 Rating: R (for disturbing violent content, and language throughout including [...]
No doubt you've seen my review of PARASITE, the most well-conceived, executed, and surprising movie out there now, but here's my take on a few more--worthy in whole, in part, or not at all... These films represent my wide-ranging interest in all kinds of movies, even as fewer and fewer of them are now playing [...]
AT LAST! The juvenile, CGI-infested, big screen parade of sequels and blockbuster money grabs masquerading as movies have released their chokehold on the marketplace-- and the real movie season has begun! FALL brings serious, smart, entertaining, varied, challenging adult fare to movie theaters and I look forward to stimulating viewing instead of sinking into a [...]
PATRIOTS DAY--Pointless. If you lived through the Boston Marathon bombings, nothing compares. For all its good intentions and attempts at verisimilitude, this film adds nothing and mutes the impact of that tragic week in Boston's history. It also traffics in some pretty annoying cliches: Boston cops are, apparently, the most foul-mouthed in the country; and only the same roster of actors [...]
As attractive, well-crafted, and convincingly--even compellingly acted as BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE was, I couldn't stop thinking that one good conversation between our superheroes would have cleared the whole thing up. But then it dawned on me-- there would be no movie. Boys will be boys, so this screenplay goes a long way toward ramping [...]
THE 2016 OSCARS are upon us and I thought I'd weigh in on a few films I'd been mum on-- in case you were wondering for what and whom to root! ROOM: Nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay is a compactly explosive film about a horrifying situation: a young woman kidnapped, impregnated, and kept prisoner by a sexual predator-- and [...]
The blockbusters and the hidden gems are battling it out this summer, and here are the winners and losers according to my calculations. I bit the bullet and saw the number one movie in the country: JURASSIC WORLD-- the JURASSIC PARK sequel that's tearing up the box office, with the biggest opening of all time anywhere, ever, on [...]
