Colin Farrell
The solemn and pensive After Yang resounds with sadness and grief; yet it is a celebration of loved ones passed on. We mourn because of the hole they leave in our lives, but they are also the cause of healing and renewal. Based on the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” by Alexander Weinstein, director/screenwriter […]
Read More
The mere mention of “A Guy Ritchie Film” evokes differing reactions from everyone, whether casual fans or considered part of the cognoscenti. Most think immediately of his first two breakout feature films – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Both are wittily-written and cannily-directed stories based in London’s criminal underworld, dealing with unsavory types […]
Read More
What happens when you take all the magic and fun out of a children’s movie? If you’ve ever wanted to experience the answer to that, look no further than the live-action remake of Dumbo, which is fake to its very core, from its obvious CGI trappings to its actors who can’t decide if they wanted […]
Read More
So this psychic hooks up with the FBI to catch a serial killer… oh, you’ve heard this one before? But wait, there’s more. “Solace” is almost a carbon copy of David Fincher’s “Se7en”. Except instead of killing people for their sins, this psycho is mercy-killing the terminally ill. But hold on, here’s the interesting part: […]
Read More
It’s hard not to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as anything other than a family film capable of inspiring us to be our better selves while helping those in need. After all, author J. K. Rowling penned seven Harry Potter novels about this very notion; why would her first screenwriting effort be […]
Read More
One problem with “Saving Mr. Banks”, which tells the story of Mary Poppins’ journey from book to big screen and more specifically the volatile relationship between Walt Disney and British author P.L. Travers during her two weeks at the studio negotiating the script in 1961, is the fact that it’s a Disney production. I have no problem […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on March 8, 2013 at Reel Film News) In the short time I’ve had to ruminate on the pros and cons of “Dead Man Down”, which is the American feature debut of director Niels Arden Oplev (who made the Swedish version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”), I’ve grown […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on October 12, 2012 at Reel Film News) As the credits rolled on “Seven Psychopaths”, I found myself struggling to remember how the whole thing started in the first place. The film, written and directed by Martin McDonagh (2008’s “In Bruges”), plays like a stream of consciousness; it’s easy to […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on July 9, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) If Seth Gordon were a less competent director, I might be tempted to make a few cheap and obvious critical references to the title of his newest film “Horrible Bosses”, though I would not be proud of myself for it. Fortunately, his […]
Read More