‘Ouija’ Only Works in a Single Digit IQ World
As long as it avoids anything closely resembling the real world, Ouija works. Not as horror, but as a cautionary example as to why "gotchas" don't necessarily equal scares.
Short Cuts
In ‘Nymph()maniac – The Director’s Cut’, More Actually Is More
Even with all its XXX gimmickry, Nymph()maniac remains grounded in character. From someone like Von Trier, we'd expect nothing less, and we even get a lot more.
‘Fury’ Offers an Authentic Look at Life During Wartime
It's the brutality of Saving Private Ryan without the jingoistic flag-waving, the one-two punch of Clint Eastwood's Greatest Generation epics sans the strident moralizing.
‘The Best of Me’ Offers the Worst of Nicolas Sparks
Like a hack tunesmith that keeps rewriting the same melodies over and over again, hoping his legion of fans don't notice the ruse, we've heard this Sparks song before.
‘Dracula Untold’ Is More ‘Game of Thrones’ Than a Trip to Transylvania
Dracula Untold is terrible. It should be subtitled Dracula Unnecessary.
‘Annabelle’ Can’t “Conjure” Up its Predecessor’s Scares
Annabelle could have been great. Unfortunately, it barely lives up to its horror heritage.
‘Left Behind’ Lacks Legitimate Biblical Bite
Left Behind is laughably bad, indescribably stupid, and fails in its most basic motion picture function: to turn people back to God.
‘The Boxtrolls’ Goes for the Dark and Dour and Ends Up Dismal
Ben Kingsley's dreadful Archibald Snatcher is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Child Catcher merged with a John Tenniel fever dream.
‘Tusk’ is Really Savage Like, Really Weird, and Really Good
Instead of playing with the anticipated and the preconceived, Kevin Smith takes a intriguing premise and circumvents our expectations.
‘The Maze Runner’ Gets YA (Partially) Right
The Maze Runner reminds us that an interesting idea, told well, can trump any number of artistic or aesthetic issues.
Siblings… Sadness… Suicide… ‘The Skeleton Twins’
This is one of the best films about the lingering effects of dysfunction that's been made.