There just isn’t enough story to carry Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling” through a feature length running time. While the premise is there, the screenplay (from Katie Silberman, and Carey & Shane Van Dyke) fails to have anything new or interesting to say about the film’s themes, nor does Wilde have the skills as a director to pull it all off. In an attempt to mix different genres, the ... more >
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A good idea sabotaged by inconsistent filmmaking: “DON’T WORRY DARLING” | FILM REVIEW
Starring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine
Directed by Olivia Wilde
She shines, this one: in a film blaringly surfeited with CGI, actress Gal Gadot reaches near-perfection | “WONDER WOMAN 1984”
Rewind to the eighties
Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and Kristen Wiig
Directed by Patty Jenkins
But the film was in too much of a hurry to kowtow to the impatience of today’s movie-going audiences and jumps right into the overdone CGI madness. The first “Wonder Woman” was a good and well-done film that too quicky traded in its soul for eye candy. The opening moments of “Wonder Woman 1984” teases us by returning to Themyscira for an even shorter time. The scene shows the child Diana Prince ... more >
“People like us”
Putting the fam together piece by piece
Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pine and Michelle Pfeiffer
Directed by Alex Kurtzman
Have you heard of “People like Us”? It's by the same studio--Dreamworks--which had released “The Help.” "People" barely even meets that previous mediocre effort, however, and lacks the two name actresses who made "The Help" the film that it was. That "People" was written by the same scribes (Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; they also directed this new film) who were behind the “Transformers” ... more >
Unstoppable
How do you stop a mile-long freight train again?
Denzel Washington, Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson
Directed by Tony Scott
I loved "Unstoppable." Every improbable, electric minute of Tony Scott’s runaway train movie, its ludicrous start. I loved its “why didn’t they do that in the first place? Because then we wouldn’t have a movie” ending. Most of all, though, I loved the fact that it’s red meat for the Great Tony Scott debate, ie., is he a cinematic genius or a cinematic vandal? "Unstoppable" returns Scott to ... more >