SHE TAUGHT HIM EVERYTHING SHE KNEW – ABOUT PASSION AND MURDER. In the middle of a Florida heatwave, lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt) embarks on an affair with a sexy married woman (Kathleen Turner)… and soon they begin to talk about getting rid of her husband (Richard Crenna). Lawrence Kasdan’s first film as a director … Continue reading Body Heat
EXPLODING! LIKE A GUN IN YOUR FACE! When ex-con Joe Rolfe (John Payne) realizes that he’s been used as a patsy by a gang of criminals that robbed an armored car in Kansas City, he goes after them for revenge. A low-budget thriller that inspired Quentin Tarantino during the making of Reservoir Dogs (1992), it … Continue reading Kansas City Confidential
There were people who hated House of Cards right from the start. Some were political analysts who didn’t find any of the outlandish events on the show credible. Others considered the cynical tone unappealing and sort of unhelpful in a world that was becoming increasingly ugly; did we really need a show where every politician … Continue reading House of Cards: Underwood’s Underworld
EVERY CON HAS ITS PROS. Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie (Sandra Bullock) is released from prison and assembles a gang that will steal a valuable necklace during the Met gala. One decade after Ocean’s Thirteen came this spin-off featuring a fabulous lineup of women. The movie may lack Steven Soderbergh’s touch, but is an improvement on … Continue reading Ocean’s Eight
WE NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD HAPPEN TO US. Sweden finds itself under attack from a foreign power; Alex (Christoffer Nordenrot) tries to make his way back to the place where he grew up, but his father (Jesper Barkselius) is already preparing for the worst. The first feature film to come out of the filmmaking collective … Continue reading The Unthinkable
THIS IS THE LAND OF YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN. When a tracker (Jeremy Renner) finds a frozen body of a teenage girl on the Wyoming Wind River Indian reservation, the FBI sends an agent (Elizabeth Olsen) who’s ill-prepared for the conditions… As a director, Taylor Sheridan follows the style set in his scripts for Sicario … Continue reading Wind River
DIRTY HARRY JUST LEARNED A NEW GAME. When a rock star (Jim Carrey) dies, Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) realizes that the overdose is in fact murder; more celebrities in San Francisco are in danger… The fifth Dirty Harry film is nothing special, but has two ingredients that stand out – Carrey in an early part … Continue reading The Dead Pool
LEFT WITH NOTHING. CAPABLE OF ANYTHING. In Chicago, a seasoned criminal (Liam Neeson) and his team are killed by an explosion, eventually forcing their widows to complete a heist the men were planning. This forceful remake of the 1983-1985 British series marks Steve McQueen’s more than capable entry into action-thriller territory. Tension remains high while … Continue reading Widows
THEY’RE COMING. Baltimore, 1990; a mysterious man (Bruce Willis) ends up in a mental institution where he tells the doctors that he comes from the future, looking for a virus that’s going to wipe out billions of people. Terry Gilliam put his stamp on this feature film version of a French 1962 short called La … Continue reading Twelve Monkeys
In turn-of-the-century Britain, Thomas Richardson (Dan Stevens) goes to a remote Welsh island to find his sister who’s been kidnapped by a religious cult. The Raid (2012) director Gareth Evans delivers a bloody yarn with supernatural overtones about a former missionary’s attempt to infiltrate a cult that’s worshipping a mysterious goddess. Intriguing at first, gory … Continue reading Apostle
THE TRUE STORY OF A DAY THAT STARTED LIKE ANY OTHER. Paul Greengrass’s take on the 2011 terrorist attack against Norway, where one man blew up the government quarters in Oslo and murdered 68 people, most of them children, on the island of Utøya, is certainly ambitious. Portraying the terrorist, his attorney (who struggled with … Continue reading 22 July
AFTER WORLD WAR II, THE MISSION FOR JUSTICE BEGAN. In 1960, Israeli agents learn that one of the architects behind the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann (Ben Kingsley), is hiding in Buenos Aires; a mission is set up to capture him. This version of how Eichmann was finally brought to justice was inspired by Mossad agent Peter … Continue reading Operation Finale
IF YOU COME IN FIVE MINUTES AFTER THIS PICTURE BEGINS, YOU WON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT! WHEN YOU’VE SEEN IT ALL, YOU’LL SWEAR THERE’S NEVER BEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT! This movie ran into bad luck. Or was it really that bad? It’s been said sometimes that The Manchurian Candidate was pulled from distribution when … Continue reading Manchurian Candidate: Agent Solitaire
