Drive In
-
‘Unfinished Business’ should never have started
In the years since he strutted onto the scene — lean, handsome, mouth running a mile a minute — in Doug Liman’s “Swingers” (1996), ... -
O’Connell leads gripping Belfast thriller ‘71’
The grimly gripping thriller ‘71’ plunges a young, inexperienced British soldier into the mayhem of 1970s Belfast. Private Gary Hook (the up-and-coming “Unbroken” star ... -
Teen comedy ‘DUFF’ gives genre a social media spin
All teen comedies owe some debt to John Hughes and Amy Heckerling. The milieu of suburban teenage life that they explored decades ago has ... -
‘Birdman’ takes flight at an Oscars punctuated by politics
Birdman” captured Hollywood’s top honor at the Academy Awards yesterday, where the jazzy, surreal comedy about an actor fleeing his superhero past won best ... -
Oscars speeches filled with political activism, pet issues
Much of the chatter going into the Oscars was about the lack of diversity in the Academy’s choices, specifically the dearth of nominations for ... -
SHOW BITS: Placing your bets on Oscar winners
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Show Bits brings you the 87th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles through the eyes of Associated Press journalists. Follow ... -
‘Kingsman’ shakes up the traditional spy thriller
In his earlier “Kick-Ass,” British writer-director Matthew Vaughn famously cast an 11-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz as a young killing machine in the stylishly brutal ... -
Fifty Shades of dissatisfaction
Curious? The posters for “Fifty Shades of Grey” coyly ask. Whether or not you’re one of the 100 million who bought, and presumably read, ... -
Tragedies of ‘Timbuktu’ told with rare beauty
The hot Malian sands of Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Timbuktu” are a cool reservoir of placid beauty, where desert dunes are swept by quiet ripples of ... -
Depp indulges inner clown in charmless ‘Mortdecai’
Any film credited with its own “mustache wrangler” really should have been much more fun than Johnny Depp’s latest misfiring action-comedy. Mostly set in ... -
Pacino bristles with comic energy in ‘The Humbling’
Al Pacino delivers his best performance in years in “The Humbling,” a tragicomic look at a veteran stage and film actor on the edge ... -
Time is bent – and gender, too – in ‘Predestination’
Time travel. There’s hardly a more alluring fantasy in our pop culture, from the simplest depictions — children’s cartoons, comic strips, romantic comedy films ... -
‘American Sniper’ is quintessential Eastwood
A mere six months after releasing the Four Seasons drama “Jersey Boys,” Clint Eastwood has again lapped his younger directing colleagues with his second ... -
Don’t bet on this oddly lifeless ‘Gambler’ remake
If you’re not a genius, don’t bother,” the English professor played by Mark Walhberg in “The Gambler” blithely tells his students. That should be ... -
MDT/AP top 10 films | Playing with time, again and again
1. “Ida” — Where did this perfect little gem come from? Its director, Pawel Pawlikowski, wasn’t previously a major name in international cinema. Yet ... -
‘The Interview’ deserves to be seen
That I was one of the relative few to see “The Interview” is not a boast I take any pleasure in. It’s with heavy ... -
‘Annie’ is a hard knock, no fun adaptation
It’s impossible to talk about “Annie” without admitting up front when you first experienced John Huston’s 1982 film. For adults at the time, it ... -
‘Inherent Vice’ goes by in a pleasant haze
If you’re one of those who fondly recalls spending the ‘60s luxuriating in a pleasantly disorienting haze, well, consider “Inherent Vice” a reunion of ... -
‘Wild’ finds salvation in the woods
Cheryl Strayed, as played by Reese Witherspoon in Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Wild,” is, bless the Lord, not an easily discernable type. She’s also not the ... -
Cumberbatch shines as wartime codebreaker
Tis clearly the season for Oscar-worthy performances by British actors playing mathematical geniuses facing daunting personal odds. Sound overly specific? Consider: A few weeks ... -
‘Dumb and Dumber To’ lives up to its title
Comedy is all about timing. The dimwitted Lloyd (Jim Carrey) reminds the audience of that simple fact minutes into “Dumb and Dumber To” and ... -
‘Homesman’ reverses the Western’s course
There’s been some trouble about the women hereabouts,” says John Lithgow’s plains preacher in Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Homesman.” The hereabouts is a tiny, ... -
A brilliant Redmayne as Stephen Hawking
The famed British physicist Stephen Hawking has never had small ideas or small ambitions, least of all his audacious youthful quest to find a ... -
3 below-the-radar films to catch this fall
By all means, see David Fincher’s gloriously pulpy “Gone Girl,” the elegant, surreal comedy “Birdman,” the percussive and intelligent indie “Whiplash” and the staggering ... -
John Wick’ delivers non-stop action
In an intriguing cinematic twist, Keanu Reeves’ Matrix stunt double Chad Stahelski becomes his co-director with David Leitch on “John Wick,” a visceral revenge ... -
‘Fury’ aims for an unvarnished look at war
At one point during “Fury,” the World War II drama starring Brad Pitt out Friday, a tank commander’s head is blown off while he’s ... -
Murray delights as curmudgeonly ‘Vincent’
If we were going to be curmudgeonly about it — and “St. Vincent” is, after all, a movie about a curmudgeon — we’d focus ... -
‘Two Faces’ builds tension, has nice cast
Who can say no to a good Patricia Highsmith adaptation? Though her 1964 suspense thriller “The Two Faces of January” is not the easiest ... -
‘Tracks’ leaves a mark
The movies, it seems, are increasingly headed down paths in the woods, out to open water and, in the case of John Curran’s excellent ... -
Chastain, McAvoy make ‘Them’ a worthy trip
All the lonely people. Where do they all belong? You won’t hear that line in “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them” (more on that ... -
‘Last Days in Vietnam’ shows Saigon’s fall
There are many differences between America’s troubled exit from Iraq and its ramshackle retreat from Vietnam. But the U.S. flight from Saigon as seen ... -
Akin’s ‘The Cut’ puts Armenian massacre on screen
Fatih Akin’s “The Cut” is the first movie by a director with Turkish roots to tackle an issue long taboo in the country: the ... -
Meta and mad, ‘The Congress’ is a trip
Very soon, this whole structure that we all love so much will be gone,” prophesies Danny Huston’s wide-grinning movie studio head in Ari Folman’s ... -
A sweet Moretz rescues ‘If I Stay’
Tis clearly the season for exceedingly attractive young adults in mortal peril. Just two months ago, we had the charming Shailene Woodley as a ... -
‘Let’s Be Cops’ falls flat on humor
At one point during “Let’s Be Cops,” actor Damon Wayans Jr. has a scene in which a huge naked man’s groin is inches from ...
You must be logged in to post a comment.