BB.5 (out of 5) There’s a moment in the 1991 animated Beauty And The Beast that surpasses all others, an interaction of exceptional subtlety and tension that most live-action features can rarely hope to achieve, let… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) Louis XIV (Alan Rickman, who also directed) is moving his court to Versailles to appease France’s nervous aristocracy, turning the former hunting lodge into a glorious palace with a… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) The popular conception of the sixties did not begin with the turn of the calendar’s pages, narrator Stanley Tucci tells us, but with a bus trip conducted by Ken… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) The nonsense continues in this conclusion to the trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins, which like many of the adventure sagas aimed at young people ends with far more… Continue reading
B (out of 5) The land of Panem is a dire place to be after our heroine Katniss has destroyed the Hunger Games, rendering the country just as humorless as it was before… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) A new editor takes over the Boston Globe and tells members of “Spotlight”, a team of journalists who do deep work on long research projects, that a story has… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) The saga of Julian Assange is given the cinematic treatment by Bill Condon, with Benedict Cumberbatch doing an uncanny riff on the man and an excellent Daniel Brühl as his sidekick, Daniel… Continue reading
BB (out of 5) William Goldman adapts his novel Heat for the second time, following the Burt Reynolds vehicle made by Dick Richards in 1986. This time the star is Jason Statham as a… Continue reading
BBB (out of 5) The last film put the loveably fuzzy creatures, originally created from the fertile imagination of Jim Henson, back on top of show biz after years of obscurity, so why… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Animation becomes poetry as Hayao Miyazaki makes what he has announced as his final film into an ode to dreaming itself. This beautiful romance between both a man and… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) An honest and hardworking hotel chambermaid (Jennifer Lopez) gets the chance to be a princess for a day when she tries on the discarded clothing of a wealthy guest… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) Pleasant tribute to Manhattan life in the 1940s, with Stanley Tucci (who also directs) playing New Yorker columnist Joe Mitchell. Mitchell comes upon the story of the decade when he… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) Stanley Tucci’s tribute to silent-era filmmaking is an art-deco delight, one that is short on substance but long on rollicking humour. Tucci and Oliver Platt play two down-and-out unemployed actors… Continue reading
BB (out of 5) Delayed after September 11th because it dealt with a terrorist bomb on an airplane, this film wouldn’t have been missed had it been left on the shelf forever. A… Continue reading
BBB (out of 5) In a world where mechanized robots are living creatures with hearts and souls, young Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) dreams of making it as an inventor. Growing up in a… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Alan Rudolph, the mini-Robert Altman, comes up with a formless foray into the world of Dorothy Parker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the Algonquin set of New York in the… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) The girl who survived the Shirley Jackson-meets-Mad Max spectacle of the first film is back in mundane rehash that barely passes for a sequel. Jennifer Lawrence‘s Katniss finds herself… Continue reading
B (out of 5) Flat, boring and completely unsympathetic romantic comedy that wastes the talent of everyone involved. Billy Crystal (who wrote and produced) plays a publicity director at a major Hollywood studio… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) Deliverance and Westworld are combined for the teen set in this terrific adaptation of the popular novel by Suzanne Collins. It takes place in the chillingly not-so-distant future, where… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Droll New York comedy about happy housewife Hope Davis, who sees husband Stanley Tucci off to work one morning and accidentally finds a love letter that he leaves behind, written… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) More superhero fun from the Marvel universe, this time with the added charm of wide-eyed nostalgia for a bygone era. Scrawny, undersized Chris Evans (made diminutive thanks to some very… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Geoffrey Rush‘s awe-inspiring performance is the main reason to watch this excellent biopic of one of the cinema’s most gifted comedians. Sellers went from obscurely modest fame on England’s… Continue reading
B.5 (out of 5) Uneven adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic fantasy play that will seem choppy and badly edited even to those completely unfamiliar with the original. Director Michael Lehmann has eliminated so much… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) flies into New York city’s JFK airport from the fictional nation of Krakhozia with very little command of the English language and the desire to… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) Excessively long film version of John Grisham’s popular bestseller. This time the lawyer-in-distress plot revolves around a young law student (Julia Roberts) who ruminates on the recent assassination of… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Emma Stone couldn’t be more deserving of her own film, particularly after having stolen scenes in films like Superbad and The House Bunny. She is adorable in this hilariously… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) This movie is fabulous with a capital snap! Adapted from Lauren Weisberger’s popular novel, it features Meryl Streep as an Anna Wintour-esque magazine editor (commonly referred to as ‘Dragon Lady’)… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) In 1950s Paris, happily married Julia Child (Meryl Streep) accompanies her diplomat husband (Stanley Tucci) to his new posting in the City Of Lights, and finds herself desirous of… Continue reading
BBBBB (out of 5) John Huston’s classic caper is right up there with The Godfather and GoodFellas, distinguished from its peers by also including elements of humour that aren’t usually a staple of… Continue reading
B.5 (out of 5) Despite Madonna’s surprisingly good comedic timing, this entire film falls flat and makes for one of the worst screwball comedies in existence. Liberally lifting plot elements from Bringing Up… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) Bored by his pleasantly numb existence, an estate lawyer (Richard Gere) decides to swallow his fear and sign up for ballroom dance classes at the studio he passes on… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) The final scene of Working Girl has Melanie Griffith triumphing over adversity by getting an entry-level job as one of the billions of drones occupying offices on Wall Street.… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) Should be called Road To Pretentious; it’s so perfectly photographed and brilliantly art-directed within an inch of its life that it makes for the most shameless Oscar-baiting of the… Continue reading
BB (out of 5) A twelve year-old girl (Saoirse Ronan) is raped and murdered by the neighbourhood weirdo (Stanley Tucci) and finds herself wandering in the “in-between”, a computer graphically designed afterlife that… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) At times fun, at times frustrating comedy by Danny Boyle about two seriously disturbed angels (Holly Hunter, Delroy Lindo) who are sent down to earth to oversee the romance… Continue reading
BBB.5 (out of 5) Nicolas Cage plays a gold-hearted cop who comes up short of a tip for a Manhattan waitress (Bridget Fonda), promising instead to split the spoils of his lottery ticket with… Continue reading
BBB (out of 5) Incredibly weird romance with its share of interesting moments. Alec Baldwin (who starred in the original play with Mary-Louise Parker) and Meg Ryan play a couple who fall in… Continue reading
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Those who love great movies about food like Babette’s Feast, Like Water For Chocolate and A Chef In Love will get a lot out of this brilliant comedy-drama. Two… Continue reading
BB.5 (out of 5) Christina Aguilera makes her starring debut as, what else, an aspiring singer who is tired of being mistreated by the owner of the Nowheresville, Iowa diner where she works. She… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Two white women get off a train in segregated 1931 Alabama and tell the authorities that they have been raped by nine black men who were passengers on the… Continue reading
BBBB (out of 5) Massive electrical storms are ravaging big cities, birds are flying into buildings and causing mass hysteria, and the sky is constantly filled with beautiful Northern Light-like visions. Scientists discover… Continue reading
BBB (out of 5) Woody Allen plays a popular scribe with writer’s block who spends two days re-examining his life and his past (bad) relationships, using his stories as his guide. Mr. Dalloway… Continue reading
