Latest Tarzan Dangles from a Vine of Pointless Indifference The good news in regards to director David Yates’ (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) African adventure The Legend of Tarzan is that it doesn’t spend a heck of a lot of time going through the famous character’s backstory. Instead, screenwriters Adam Cozad (Jack Ryan: Shadow […]

While I can’t say I was as energized by The Purge: Election Year as much as I was the two stories that came before it, I’m still fairly enthused by what it is DeMonaco is doing here, this third chapter in the saga a politically astute meat grinder that’s worthy of a look.

With Radcliffe and especially Dano fully committed to material no matter how extreme things might get, this human comedy of the divine become a soulful outburst of imagination and insight born out of disarray and chaos. Swiss Army Man is downright wonderful, the multifaceted minutia of its various marvels so rapturously exhilarating they’re worthy of applause.

Whether one is a fan of the book or has never read the darn thing, The BFG is a delightful fantasy, one all associated with the film should be proud of, the end result an enchanting journey of resilience and imagination the likes of which dreams are born from.

Sure The Shallows is nothing more than a Jaws meets Gravity meets All Is Lost riff where the outcome is never in doubt, but that doesn’t make the thrills and chills any less sublime. Collet-Serra has managed to craft an efficient B-grade chiller that gets right to the point and never overstays its welcome.

The best decision directors Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha) and Jake Paltrow (Young Ones) make in regards to their Hollywood documentary De Palma is let the man at the center of the maelstrom, fiery, opinionated and legendary filmmaker Brian De Palma, do all of the speaking for himself. He alone speaks on his career…He alone opens the viewer’s eyes to an era of auteur-driven Hollywood filmmaking unlike any that came before, and almost rest assured unlike anything that will ever come again.

Central thrusts involving racism are readily obvious right from the start, figuring out who is killing all the Mexicans not particularly difficult. But there are also threads involving revenge, cults, religious fundamentalism, misogyny and politics that all come into play, all of them sewn together in ways that are as random as they are bizarre.

It’s quite possible that Independence Day: Resurgence might take home the prize for being 2016’s most pointless sequel…Not so much bad as it is boring, the sequel is a lot of sound and fury that adds up to precious little, everything building to a ho-hum climax that’s nothing more than a gloried cliffhanger for a potential third adventure.

Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is every bit as sensational the second (and third) time around as it was the first, the depth and breadth of the emotional undercurrents running through it simply stunning. Rampling and Courtney are extraordinary, delivering performances ranking as two of the best either of the pair has ever delivered. In short, Weekend is amazing.