It took six male screenwriters to achieve the impossible: Make Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish seem like mere comedy mortals. Their first collaboration, Night School, is a mediocre disappointment that features plenty of banter but almost no bite. Though both stars have cut their teeth on, well, cutting humor, they go gooey here. They even […]

Everything happens for a reason. While that cliché may be comforting in theory — my heartbreak now will end in bliss later! — it’s lazy in a film. The self-aware Life Itself shoves this message down your throat along with a vat of sugar. Open at your own risk. The twist is that Dan Fogelman, creator of […]

It’s an unseasonably chilly Sunday evening at the Toronto International Film Festival. You could turn in early and take advantage of the festival’s most coveted commodity — that would be sleep — or you could go to the premiere of that glittery Lady Gaga musical, A Star Is Born. Or Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, Mid-90s. Or If Beale Street Could […]

THIS MOVIE HAS GONE OFF THE RAILS. I usually can’t decipher what I scribble in my little notebook during movie screenings. I’m ensconced in darkness, and my senses are overwhelmed by the images on the screen. During A Simple Favor, I wrote those words in big block letters and underlined them just to make sure […]

Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. An American hero that risked his life to push space exploration into a new frontier. His tale of triumph and tragedy will be read in history books forever. So any big screen biography will surely be a vast, feel-good chest-thumper punctuated with grandiose speeches, […]

So this is what Lady Gaga looks like. Mousy shoulder-length brown hair protecting a delicate Picasso-shaped face. Fair complexion with a few faint freckles, defined nose, almond eyes. In the moving and exhilarating A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper — making his directorial debut — likes to place the camera right on her face and zoom in. He […]

Summer is finally over, yesssss. You know what that means, right? Dwayne Johnson takes a vacation, while Ryan Gosling and Nicole Kidman get busy. We’ll see families come together and families break apart in ways that will gut the heart. (Want families devoured by a shark? That’s what The Meg was for.) Here’s your definitive, no […]

Hi there, everyone! This Happytime Murders review is brought to you by the letter “I.” Insipid. Imbeciles. Incomprehensible. Insane. You can use that last word in a sentence such as “The person that thought this witless, crude black noire puppet farce would be a rousing crowd-pleaser must be insane.” The letter also can be used […]

Like Michael Jackson’s death and the capture of Osama Bin Laden, I will always remember where I was when I learned the news. That would be the 96thStreet subway station, a dingy underground transportation hub that, because of its suffocating stand-still heat in mid-August, can only be described as the MTA version of hell. I […]

They’re crazy-rich, all right. Think palatial estates and personal chefs and stunning couture gowns and an extravagant bachelor party on a private yacht and a bedroom suite on a jet. So is Crazy Rich Asians, the much-anticipated adaptation of the Kevin Kwan novel, worth its weight in gold? That’s a yes on the opulent surface. […]