“How ‘Bird Box’ Tweaked the Book’s Ending”

You have questions about the ending of BIRD BOX. We have answers. (Actually, I have questions, and I have answers, plus residual anxiety that Netflix will green-light a totally unnecessary sequel to this thing.) Continue reading →

Review: The Girl on the Train, 2016, dir. Tate Taylor

Here’s a tip: Instead of watching The Girl on the Train, go watch a better movie. Go watch a Brian de Palma movie. Go watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I would say “go watch Gone Girl,” but that’s too obvious, so how about don’t do that? It’s not that The Girl on the Train is bad; it’s that … Continue reading →

Review: The Light Between Oceans, 2016, dir. Derek Cianfrance

Can any of my patrons who have both read M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans and seen Derek Cianfrance’s adaptation tell me whether the movie matches up with the book in its soapy, over-the-top, yet remarkably under-drawn melodrama? I either know people who have read the book or watched the film. I don’t know people who have pulled … Continue reading →

Review: In the Heart of the Sea, 2015, dir. Ron Howard

“In the Heart of the Sea is a movie with an identity problem. It’s also a movie with an acting problem, a staging problem, a plot problem, a handful of FX problems and a narrative framework problem. Did Ron Howard learn nothing from Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby? Apparently, the takeaway from that film is … Continue reading →