Category: In the Dark

Hell or High Water Produced by Film 44  Directed by David Mackenzie  Screenplay by Taylor Sheridan  Distributed by CBS  Pete’s Dragon Produced and distributed by  Walt Disney Productions  Directed and written by David Lowery  Hell or High Water has won extravagant praise from mainline film reviewers.  This, I suspect, has to do more with its...

Risen Produced and distributed by Sony Pictures  Directed by Kevin Reynolds  Screenplay by Kevin Reynolds and Paul Aiello  10 Cloverfield Lane Produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot  Directed by Dan Trachtenberg  Screenplay by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle  You could hardly choose a more unvarnished title for a retelling of...

Black Mass Produced by Cross Creek Pictures  Directed by Scott Cooper  Screenplay by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, based on the book Black Mass, by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill  Distributed by Warner Brothers  Ever since The Great Train Robbery flashed on the screen in 1903, Americans have been enthralled by gangster movies.  They not...

Phoenix Produced by Schramm Film Koerner & Weber and Bayerische Rundfunk  Directed and written by Christian Petzold  Distributed by Sundance Selects  The Gift Produced by Blue-Tongue Films and Blumhouse Productions  Directed and written by Joel Edgerton  Distributed by STX Entertainment and Showtime Networks  German director Christian Petzold’s new film, Phoenix, begins with a perfectly dark...

Mr. Holmes Produced by BBC Films and See-Saw Films Directed by Bill Condon Screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher from Mitch Cullin’s novel, A Slight Trick of the Mind Distributed by The Weinstein Company  Mr. Holmes is the film adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s curious 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind.  Reading the novel, I was...

Madame Bovary Produced by A Company Filmproduktions gesellschaft Screenplay by Felipe Marino and Sophie Barthes from Gustave Flaubert’s novel Directed by Sophie Barthes Distributed by Alchemy and Millennium Entertainment  Gustave Flaubert was the satirist of dissatisfaction.  His principal theme was the ruinous nature of unrealizable dreams, a malady he treated with cold contempt in his 1857 novel...

Mad Max: Fury Road Produced by Village Roadshow Pictures  Written and directed by George Miller  Distributed by Warner Brothers  Ex Machina Produced by Film 4  Written and directed by Alex Garland  Distributed by Universal Pictures  We never know how feminism will show up at the movies.  We only know that it will.  Currently, it’s on...

Effie Gray Produced by Sovereign Films  Directed by Richard Laxton  Screenplay by Emma Thompson  Distributed by Adopt Films  The only reason for making a movie centered on Euphemia Gray (Dakota Fanning) is sex.  Or, rather its absence. This story of Effie, the first and only wife of the magisterially influential Victorian art critic and theorist...

A Most Violent Year Produced by Before The Door Pictures  and Washington Square Films Directed and written by J.C. Candor Distributed by A24 I went to J.C. Chandor’s new film A Most Violent Year with high expectations.  His first, Margin Call, was simply the best cinematic examination of the 2008 banking crisis we’ve had to...

American Sniper Produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Screenplay by Jason Hall Directed by Clint Eastwood We’re told that during his later career director John Huston frequently preferred reading a good newspaper while his actors performed a scene before the camera.  He believed in leaving them to their own devices, among which he trusted thespian...

Boyhood Produced and distributed by IFC Directed and written by Richard Linklater Richard Linklater’s Boyhood became the critics’ darling upon its staged release at the end of 2014.  From The New Yorker to the Daily News, reviewers have vied with one another to sing its praises.  Most of them think it’s a natural coming of...

Inherent Vice Produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Directed and written by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon Birdman Produced by New Regency Pictures Directed and written by Alejandro González Iñárritu Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures You never know what you’ll learn at the movies.  Watching the two films under review this...

Interstellar Produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures Directed by Christopher Nolan Screenplay by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan Nightcrawler Produced by Bold Films Written and directed by Dan Gilroy Distributed by Open Road Films In their latest film, Interstellar, Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan have tried to revive a tired science-fiction premise about the world’s...

Gone Girl Produced by New Regency Pictures Directed by David Fincher Screenplay by Gillian Flynn, from her novel Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox If only James Thurber were still with us.  I’d love to hear him address Gone Girl, both Gillian Flynn’s novel and David Fincher’s film adaptation thereof.  Why?  Because the story trades on...

Calvary Produced by Reprisal Films and The Irish Film Board   Directed and written by John Michael McDonagh Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures In his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), James Joyce has the father of his protagonist, Stephen Daedalus, bitterly complain of the Irish people, “We are an unfortunate priest-ridden...

A Most Wanted Man Produced by The Ink Factory and Film 4 Directed by Anton Corbijn Screenplay by Andrew Bovell from John Le Carre’s novel Distributed by Roadside Attractions John Le Carre has made a career of demonstrating that intelligence agencies are fundamentally untrustworthy.  The very nature of their work, he suggests, makes them prone...

Ida Produced by Canal + Polska Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski Screenplay by Pawel Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz Distributed by Music Box Films The personal is the political: This 1960’s catchphrase defiantly bandied by leftists and feminists has always seemed to me childishly peevish.  It’s as if, in a fit of collective pique, those on the...

Blue Ruin Produced by The Lab of Madness Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier Distributed by RADiUS-TWC Hateship Loveship Produced by The Film Community Directed by Liza Johnson Written by Mark Poirier from Alice Munro’s story Distributed by IFC Films Revenge, we’re told, is a dish best served cold.  But is this true?  Director Jeremy...

Noah Produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky The Unknown Known Produced by The Weinstein Company, History Films, and Moxie Pictures Written and directed by Errol Morris Distributed by RADIUS-TWC In Darren Aronofsky’s telling of the Noah story, Cain’s descendant Tubalcain (Ray Winstone) confronts his creator, growling these words: “I...

The Grand Budapest Hotel Produced by Scott Rudin Productions and Studio Babelsberg Directed and written by Wes Anderson Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures   Exceptionally well-made pastries are often said to be lighter than air.  I was reminded of this after watching Wes Anderson’s latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, a confection so airy that...

Now that Matthew McConaughey has won his loudly preordained Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, it’s time we asked how he did it. The answer is simple.  He pulled off a canny trifecta: First, he made himself an LGBT wet dream by playing a heterosexual who gets AIDS; second,...

All Is Lost Produced by Before The Door Picture Written and Directed by J.C. Chandor  Distributed by Lionsgate  Robert Redford and Bruce Dern are proving that we needn’t retire to our rocking chairs at 77—not if we have star power, that is.  Each costar of 1974’s The Great Gatsby has his own leading role in...

Captain Phillips Produced by Trigger Street Productions Directed by Paul Greengrass Screenplay by Billy Ray Distributed by Columbia Pictures  Captain Phillips, the film, has come under fire since its opening, as has the eponymous captain of the Danish container ship Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009.  Complaints against Richard Phillips have...

Blue Jasmine Produced by Perdido Productions  Written and directed by Woody Allen  Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics    Grim.  That’s the first thing to say about Woody Allen’s new movie, Blue Jasmine.  The second is that its lead, Cate Blanchett, gives one of the best performances by an actress since Vivian Leigh played Blanche DuBois...

Elysium Produced and distributed by TriStar Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment  Directed and written by Neill Blomkamp  Neill Blomkamp’s second film, Elysium, is, in a way, a sequel to his first, District 9.  This time, however, there are no eight-foot-tall prawn-like aliens accusing earthlings in Johannesburg, South Africa, of the crime of apartheid or insensitivity...

What Maisie Knew Produced by Red Crown Productions Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel Screenplay by Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright Distributed by Millennium Entertainment    Some people should not have children.  This is one way to read Henry James’s 1897 novel What Maisie Knew.  Another way, the way James preferred, is to marvel...

The Great Gatsby Produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures Directed by Baz Luhrmann Screenplay by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce    Why do studios keep trying to turn F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby into a film?  Fitzgerald’s extraordinarily vivid prose and his unmatched descriptive powers would seem to make it a natural choice,...

Oblivion Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures Written and directed by Joseph Kosinski from his graphic novel The Company You Keep Produced by Voltage Pictures Directed by Robert Redford Screenplay by Lem Dobbs from the novel by Neil Gordon Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics    Oblivion seems to me an experiment in form following function. ...

Beyond the Hills Produced by Canal+  Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu  Distributed by Sundance Selects    Beyond the Hills is Cristian Mungiu’s fictionalized account of the widely reported story of an exorcism performed at a Rumanian Orthodox monastery near Tanacu in 2005.  A disturbed young woman who had been living there had become violently...

Promised Land Produced by Focus Features and Image Nation Directed by Gus Van Sant Screenplay by Matt Damon and John Krasinski from a story by David Eggers Distributed by Focus Features   I thoroughly enjoyed Matt Damon’s latest movie, Promised Land.  It channels Frank Capra’s spirit, featuring little people caught in the toils of corporate...

The Hobbit Produced by New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Wingnut Films Directed by Peter Jackson Written by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens Distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures For this month’s column, I’ve enlisted my son Liam to write the review, since he knows far more than I do about J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s film...

Skyfall Produced by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer and Eon Productions Directed by Sam Mendes Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan Distributed by Columbia Pictures Lincoln Produced by 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures Directed by Steven Spielberg Written by Tony Kushner Distributed by Touchstone Pictures No less an authority than Vatican City’s daily newspaper,...

The Master Produced and distributed by The Weinstein Company, together with Annapurna Pictures  Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson    The Master is another travesty by the supposed wunderkind Paul Thomas Anderson.  In 2005 he gave us his rendition of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil in There Will Be Blood.  Unfortunately, he left out...

Lawless Produced by Benaroya Pictures Directed by John Hillcoat Screenplay by Nick Cave from the novel by Matt Bondurant Distributed by The Weinstein Company   Whenever I think of Prohibition movies, I inevitably see Jimmy Cagney smiling rakishly as he shrugs his shoulders to make sure his double-breasted jacket drapes just so.  He’s the city-boy...