Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

[4] The first Independence Day is one of those films that strikes just the right tone, something between earnest and goofy-as-hell, genuinely terrifying and gloriously indulgent. It was like the best possible kind of Irwin Allen disaster movie, where the…
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

[8] Bryan Singer returns to helm his fourth film in the X-Men series, and he hits another home run. This one picks up some number of years after the events of Days of Future Past, as an ancient all-powerful baddie…
Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

[7] It's the third Captain America movie, but since most of the Avengers cast is reunited, it feels more like Avengers 3. Not that it matters -- these movies all start to feel the same anyway. I like how this…
Green Room (2016)

Green Room (2016)

[7] After witnessing a murder, a punk band gets trapped by skinheads at a rural dive bar in this survival/revenge tale from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin). Anton Yelchin (from the Star Trek and Fright Night remakes) and Imogen Poots…
Let Me In (2010)

Let Me In (2010)

[6] Matt Reeves, the director of Cloverfield, makes the second stab at John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel about a twelve-year-old boy who unwittingly befriends a vampire girl. (A Swedish film version, Let the Right One In, was released in 2008.) The…
Looper (2012)

Looper (2012)

[8] Looper is a mash-up of mobster movie and sci-fi time travel flick, but rather than getting caught up in its own clever twists on a (let's face it) hackneyed sci-fi sub-genre, the movie is wisely more concerned with creating…
Barry Munday (2010)

Barry Munday (2010)

[5] A womanizer (Patrick Wilson in the title role) loses his testicles right before being slapped with a paternity suit in this soft comedy. Seeing his situation as his last chance at fatherhood, Barry gets to know his baby mama…
The Way Back (2010)

The Way Back (2010)

[6] There's no director I admire more than Peter Weir (Fearless, Mosquito Coast), even if his latest film left me a tad underwhelmed. The Way Back is about a group of men who escape a Russian labor camp during WWII…
30 Minutes or Less (2011)

30 Minutes or Less (2011)

[5] Working from a stale script that comes too late in the Tarantino wake, this dark, violent 'who's conning who' comedy is made tolerable by its flavor-of-the-week casting. If you like Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, and Aziz Ansari (like I…
Admission (2013)

Admission (2013)

[5] A Princeton admissions clerk takes a chance on an 'alternative school' kid when she discovers he may be the child she gave up for adoption many years ago. Despite the intrinsic charm of both Tina Fey and Paul Rudd,…