[8] A pregnant woman waiting for the ambulance to pick her up from home must suddenly fight for her life when a scissor-wielding mad-woman invades her house with the aim of cutting her unborn baby from the womb. The concept of this French flick is unsettling enough, but what got me the most was the sheer volume of bodily fluids that ooze, drip and splash …
[7] George Clooney stars in this thriller about a lawyer who gets called in by a major corporation to “fix” a potential whistle-blower who is losing his mind the longer he keeps his secret. I never thought I would enjoy this movie because the marketing made it look so drab and dreadful, but it’s actually a solid little thriller where one wrong move or some …
[6] Rosario Dawson stars in this rape revenge story about a timid college freshman who keeps tabs on her rapist while falling in with a seedy crowd who inspire her method of revenge. Descent is a slow burn that tested my patience, that is until the final fifteen minutes, when the rapist becomes the rapee. And when you think it might be over, it ain’t. …
[8] Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Ritter star in this tale of two boys from different sides of the tracks who form a tenuous, unlikely friendship over time, until one boy’s secret and the other’s temper threaten to pull them apart. I think this might be one of the most enlightening examinations of bullying yet put to the screen. I expected the story to unfold predictably …
[6] In the world of shady post-9/11 politics, an innocent man (Omar Metwally) is seized by the CIA and tortured in a foreign country while his wife (Reese Witherspoon) and a doubtful CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) work on opposite sides of the world to help him. Rendition is a solid drama/thriller from Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Ender’s Game), who refrains from sensationalizing any violence or indulging …
[7] This decent little horror anthology produced by Bryan Singer serves up four tales of Halloween fright. Each of the stories feels like a small-town myth, the kind that haunts a community for generations. I particularly liked the one about a school bus driver who murders a bus load of ‘special needs’ kids. Other plot lines involve a high school principal who has it out …
[5] Two volatile sisters reunite for the younger one’s wedding, causing secrets to be revealed and relationships to fray. This Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale) flick is very character-centered as you might expect — a good vehicle for Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the two sisters. Newcomer Zane Pais, as Kidman’s awkward teenaged son, gets as much screen …
[6] Jim Carrey stars as a man who discovers a book that he believes is about him, sinking him further and further into a murder mystery that proposes the killer is, quite literally, the number 23. Carrey is good and director Joel Schumacher’s (A Time to Kill, Flatliners) direction is taut, if a little too hyper-stylized for the material. I don’t put stock in numerology, …
[7] Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) and Donnie Wahlberg star in this stylish horror film from James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring). Kwanten plays a man whose wife has been murdered by a creepy-looking ventriloquist doll and Wahlberg plays the detective convinced that Kwanten killed her. The two pursue their separate lines of investigation, both of which lead to an abandoned Guignol theater where they uncover the …
[6] Oliver Stone’s epic bio of the Macedonian military legend, like so many pet projects, is a glorious mess of a movie. The screenplay goes back and forth in time, mixing scenes of Alexander’s youth with scenes of his conquests. The result is jarring, never allowing you to get to know the character in any time. The narrative also relies far too much on Anthony …
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