J.K. Simmons

[7] A burglar evades police by taking a bickering couple hostage in their own home on Christmas Eve in this dark comedy from director Ted Demme (Blow, Beautiful Girls) and co-screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King). The Ref is nothing if not a casting coup. Stand-up comic Denis Leary headlines as the burglar, but the film is really much more of an ensemble piece than …

[7] Tom Holland, my personal favorite Spider-Man, returns in his third official film — although his character has also appeared in many other Marvel movies that don’t have his name in the title. This time, the young webslinger is dealing with the fallout from the last film, chiefly that his secret identity has been revealed to the world and everyone thinks he’s a bad guy. …

[4] Michael Fassbender (Shame, Steve Jobs) stars as a Norwegian police detective on a missing person case that quickly becomes the hunt for a serial killer called The Snowman. Rebecca Ferguson (Dune, Doctor Sleep) co-stars as his eager new partner, who discovers potential leads involving a fertility doctor and a powerful businessman. But as leads turn into red herrings, is it possible the killer is …

[5] The late Chadwick Boseman stars in this mediocre actioner about a New York City detective trying to stop two cop killers from leaving Manhattan by closing all the island’s bridges and tunnels. But along the way, Boseman’s eyes are opened to a broader conspiracy that could endanger his own life. 21 Bridges benefits from Boseman’s reserved coolness and two great supporting turns from Sienna …

[7] SPOILER REVIEW: Technically, there are spoilers in this review. But if you look at the movie’s credits, you shouldn’t be surprised by them. Although we’ll probably never really know for sure, it looks to me like Joss Whedon saved Justice League from Zack Snyder. The movie has character and heart and it’s paced like a real movie, whereas Snyder’s movies lack character and heart, and, …

[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] Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) takes the reigns and casts Tobey Maguire as the famous web-slinging superhero. The script is ripe with pointed dialogue, but I’ll be darned if the cast don’t pull it off more often than not. Raimi’s approach is decidedly ‘comic booky’, full of color and frenetically paced, with all the grace notes and emotional high points bent toward operatic. As …