Film Reviews

Latest Reviews

• Brad Pitt and War Machine Pick at the U.S.’s Afghan Mess

  Bilge Ebiri | May 22 at 10 p.m.

  With his bow-legged power-walk, low-boil narcissism and tough-guy snarl, Brad Pitt is the comic ghost in David Michod’s all-too-real War Machine. The film, which is premiering on Netflix this week (and also getting an extremely limited theatrical...

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  In the Fifth Pirates, Captain Jack is a Halloween Costume in Search of a Story

  Alan Scherstuhl | May 22 at 9:09 a.m.

  Yes, dead men tell no tales — but neither, really, do the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Rather than stories, the series, of which this 2017 entry is the fifth, offers an unpalatable mix of mincing slapstick, rote derring-do, ponderous CGI,...

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  Black Butterfly Fruitlessly Mashes Up Stephen King's Greatest Hits

  April Wolfe | May 23 at 9 p.m.

  English 101 instructors sometimes combat plagiarism by having students read a piece and then write a summary from memory, in their own words. Most of the time, the resulting papers hit the beats of the originals, the paraphrased passages...

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  The Results Are In: Which Films Made the Cut in 2017's Houston Jewish Film Festival?

  Susie Tommaney | February 17 at 8 a.m.

  Curating flicks for the annual Houston Jewish Film Festival involves a little bit of the good, the bad and (sometimes) the ugly. It also sounds remarkably similar to the Academy Awards selection process, but without all the super secret, locked...

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  Wakefield

  April Wolfe | May 19 at 12 a.m.

  In Robin Swicord's Wakefield, an adaptation of the late E.L. Doctorow's short story of the same name, disillusioned lawyer Howard Wakefield (Bryan Cranston) chases a raccoon from his decrepit backhouse and … never returns. The...