29 Nov 2015

Thanksgiving Feast: "Victor Frankenstein," "The Good Dinosaur," "Brooklyn," "Creed," "Trumbo," and "Room"

By Mike Schulz

Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen in BrooklynAmidst time spent with friends and family and copious amounts of food, I caught three double-features over three successive days during Thanksgiving week. And as the end credits rolled on my sixth screening, I realized that the area debuts collectively formed something really unusual for this particular holiday period: a six-course meal with a complete absence of turkeys.

22 Nov 2015

All the News That's Unfit for Print: "Spotlight," "Secret in Their Eyes," and "The Night Before"

By Mike Schulz

Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d'Arcy James, Michael Keaton, and John Slattery in SpotlightSPOTLIGHT

Spotlight, director/co-writer Thomas McCarthy's dramatic procedural exploring the events leading to the Boston Globe's 2002 exposé on sexual abuse within the Catholic church, isn't much to look at. Its color palette is generally restricted to sallow browns and grays, and even under the fluorescent illumination of the Globe offices, the air is heavy with an oppressive pall. A man racing down a courthouse hallway is the closest the film comes to an action sequence. One montage is devoted solely to journalists scanning address directories with rulers. And to my eyes, Spotlight - scene by scene, minute by minute - still emerges as the least boring movie of the year.

19 Nov 2015

Have Fun Storming the Capitol!: "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"

By Mike Schulz

Liam Hemsworth and Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2

Along with a few dozen other, much younger viewers, I caught Wednesday's double-feature of concluding Hunger Games installments, even if my reasons for attending were likely far different from anyone else's. (I really just wanted to lighten my weekend workload and have an excuse to see Philip Seymour Hoffman on the big screen two more times instead of one.) But while I didn't join in my fellow patrons' applause at the close of the awkwardly titled The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, I was happier with this entry than any since 2012's original, and was glad to have preceded it with Part 1, because it turned out I needed the refresher.

15 Nov 2015

Miner Catastrophe: "The 33," "Suffragette," and "Love the Coopers"

By Mike Schulz

Lou Diamond Phillips and Antonio Banderas in The 33THE 33

Even if you can't recall the event's salient details, you likely remember the Chilean mine disaster that led the international news cycle for weeks in 2010, and that has now inspired director Patricia Riggen's The 33. But as this strong, heartfelt film's tension is built almost entirely on those salient details, it's hard to determine, in describing the story, exactly what about this five-year-old true tale should be considered a spoiler. Do you remember, for instance, how long the 33 miners were trapped before anyone even knew they were alive? How many days it took after that for rescue teams to excavate them? How many of the 33 actually perished underground?

07 Nov 2015

Bored. Mike Bored. : "Spectre" and "The Peanuts Movie"

By Mike Schulz

Daniel Craig in SpectreSPECTRE

Watching the opening credits to the new James Bond thriller Spectre, I leaned back in my seat, smiled, and thought, "Man, I love these things." Not Bond movies, per se, but their opening credits. The lushly rendered colors. The serenely gliding camera pans. The artful poses and undulating torsos. The charming, deferential formality of the star's name followed by " ... as Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 in ... ." The mystery of the accompanying pop song, which is as likely to be atrocious as marvelous. (Spectre's "Writing's on the Wall," sung by Sam Smith, leans more toward the former. And call it gender bias or even blatant sexism, but I do think that unless you're Paul McCartney or maybe Simon Le Bon, these duties should really be handled by women.)

01 Nov 2015

In a Stew: "Burnt," "Our Brand Is Crisis," and "Truth"

By Mike Schulz

Omar Sy and Bradley Cooper in BurntBURNT and OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

This past weekend brought with it not only Bradley Cooper in the genius-chef-in-crisis drama Burnt, but also Our Brand Is Crisis, in which Sandra Bullock plays a political strategist running a Bolivian presidential campaign. You know what this means, right? It may be happening on neighboring screens, but after six long years, we're finally treated to the All About Steve reunion no one was asking for!

24 Oct 2015

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree: "Steve Jobs," "The Last Witch Hunter," and "Rock the Kasbah"

By Mike Schulz

Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Fassbender, and Kate Winslet in Steve JobsSTEVE JOBS

Steve Jobs, the thunderously enjoyable new movie by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, doesn't look or sound quite like any other bio-pic. It does, however, look like a lot of other Boyle films and sounds like every Sorkin ever, and this might've been a deal-breaker if (a) I meant that insultingly, (b) the world actually needed another traditional telling of the late CEO's saga, and (c) Boyle's and Sorkin's seemingly mismatched talents didn't prove absolutely ideal for one another.

18 Oct 2015

Armistice Wrestling: "Bridge of Spies," "Goosebumps," and "Woodlawn"

By Mike Schulz

Billy Magnussen, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hanks in Bridge of SpiesBRIDGE OF SPIES

I caught Steven Spielberg's Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies at a Friday-matinée screening alongside roughly 75 others. You could tell it was a predominantly, shall we say, mature crowd because of the volume and frequency of coughing fits, the food items being unwrapped with aching slowness, and the stage-whispered narration following louder queries of "What'd he say?!" You could also tell that, on numerous occasions, the movie was really working for this group, because for long stretches the crowd opted to remain collectively, blessedly silent.

18 Oct 2015

Goth-ick: "Crimson Peak," "Beasts of No Nation," and "I'll See You in My Dreams"

By Mike Schulz

Tom Hiddleston and Mia Wasikowska in Crimson PeakCRIMSON PEAK

You gotta give director Guillermo del Toro credit: When he wants to make a movie in which the central character, for all intents and purposes, is a haunted house, this man does not mess around.

12 Oct 2015

Ar-r-r-r-r You Kidding Me?: "Pan" and "He Named Me Malala"

By Mike Schulz

Hugh Jackman and Levi Miller in PanPAN

Not long into director Joe Wright's origin fable Pan, the 12-year-old Peter (Levi Miller), newly captured by pirates descending from bungee cords, surveys the World War II fighter planes striking his kidnappers' airborne pirate ship and shouts, "Oh, come on!" Roughly an hour later, in the midst of another aerial attack, Captain Hook (Garrett Hedlund) - a heroic American boasting Indiana Jones' wardrobe and two functional hands - gazes at the melee involving enormous CGI birds of prey and shouts, "Oh, come on!" What does it say about a movie when even its leads can't believe in the on-screen nonsense?

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