Pour one picture-perfect, upscale Swedish family into a luxe ski resort in the French Alps. Mix in a controlled avalanche that goes out of control, during which Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), the man of the household, acts in a less-than-heroic manner. Stir vigorously and watch the nuclear family implode. That’s the…
Movie Minute – Interstellar
Ever find yourself wishing we had more films about relativity and quantum mechanics? If so, Christopher Nolan’s epic Interstellar is for you. It’s a little bit Inception, a pinch of 2001, and a few echoes of The Right Stuff. Matthew McConaughey plays the Sam Shepard/Chuck Yeager role as a former…
Movie Minute – Birdman
It’s pretty clear the end of the year is coming fast; studios are releasing all their Oscar bait. Add to the list Alejandro Iñárritu’s (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) Birdman. It features some powerhouse acting in the service of a lot of actorly navel-gazing. Michael Keaton plays Riggan, a version of…
Movie Minute – John Wick
Did you ever find yourself, while watching The Matrix, wishing it had less plot and more violence? If so, John Wick is your film. Keanu Reeves stars in what’s essentially a superhero flick with the hero wearing suits rather than Spandex, taking absurd amounts of punishment yet still dispatching baddies…
Movie Minute – Fury
Fury is a harrowing, unrelentingly grim portrait of a U.S. Army tank crew in Germany in the final days of WWII. It’s at bottom a study of the brotherhood of warriors and the lengths its members will go to for each other when passed through the pressure-cooker of war. Director…
Movie Minute – Art and Craft
Art and Craft is the remarkable true story of Mark Landis, a schizophrenic Mississippi man who over the course of thirty years forged hundreds of works of art and donated them to four dozen American museums. Landis, a gifted copyist, is able to duplicate pretty much any 2D artwork he…
Movie Minute – The Equalizer
Remember the 1980s TV series The Equalizer? Edward Woodward? Robert Lansing? Well, if you’re going to see Antoine Fuqua’s (Training Day, Olympus Has Fallen) version, you’ll need to forget all that; the only things the film and series share are a title and the lead character’s name. Not even the…
Movie Minute – The Drop
The Drop is a slow-burning crime story that builds tension by wrapping a net around its main characters and squeezing them tighter until you know they’re going to bust out. Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Lawless) is a standout as Bob Saginowski, a seemingly gentle soul we used to…
Movie Minute – Life of Crime
Life of Crime is a adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1978 novel The Switch, in which a couple of his trademark not-as-smart-as-they-think-they-are mooks decide to kidnap the wife of a crooked real-estate developer and ransom her back in exchange for said developer’s skimmed, tax-evading profits. Writer-director Daniel Schechter (whose work you…
Movie Minute – Calvary
Calvary is a who’ll-do-it, a murder mystery in which the murder hasn’t yet occurred. But writer-director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard, Ned Kelly) has more on his mind than just this one potential crime. Brendan Gleeson (also The Guard) delivers a quiet, simmering performance as Father James, a parish priest…