The Neon Demon (2016)

The Neon Demon (2016)

[7] Fans of Drive and Only God Forgives director Nicolas Winding Refn should find his latest effort beautiful and interesting. Outsiders may find it frustrating. Elle Fanning headlines a strong cast, playing an underage model trying to make it big in Los Angeles. She sorta…
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 spectacle was…
The Conjuring 2 (2016)

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

[4] I thought the first Conjuring movie was moderately entertaining (for a warmed-up rehash of horror cliches), and was hoping for an improvement the second time around. The sequel could have entertained me by being more about Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick…
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 named Apocalypse…
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 one starts,…
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 play two…
Mimic (1997)

Mimic (1997)

[6] Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, and Charles S. Dutton star in this creature feature about evolved cockroaches that threaten to overtake New York City. Director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) admits that the film's narrative was watered down by a…
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 remake bends…
The Concorde: Airport ’79 (1979)

The Concorde: Airport ’79 (1979)

[4] In this fourth installment (and final, by my count) of the disaster franchise, George Kennedy returns to pilot a super-sonic plane to Paris. Trouble is, the bad guy (Robert Wagner) wants to blow the plane out of the sky to stop…
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 an emotionally…