With George Clooney, Julia Roberts hitting Jodie Foster’s marks, it’s easy to believe Money Monster

In true life on a slow day, one might hover over a cable network show such as Money Monster for a couple of minutes for sheer shock value. In the movie by that name, producer Patty Fenn seems fully aware of this notion. So the veteran show-maker allows host Lee Gates to ham it up…

Captain America: Civil War takes them from Avenging friends to astonishing rivals to probing film

Life’s tough when you’re an Avenger. The latest in the line of blockbusters from the Marvel Universe starts with more terrible turmoil for the gang of heroes who collect to save the world from bad stuff concocted by badder people. Then it gets worse. Yes, Scarlet Witch’s last-second mind-wave saves Captain America’s bacon. But it…

Now you see Tom Hanks, now you don’t in A Hologram for the King

A Hologram for the King begins with the nightmare of businessman Alan Clay singing Talking Heads’ classic Once in a Lifetime to a chilling effect as he jets to Saudi Arabia to escape and — possibly, hopefully — eradicate the noted pain of said subject matter. Wife, lost in divorce. Life, in turmoil. After he…

I love some more Richard Linklater coming-of-age brilliance!!

The buzzed kids in Dazed in Confused did end up going to college. Metaphorically, in the mind of terrific writer and director Richard Linklater, it turns out. And so a quick 23 years after that breakthrough coming-of-age film that drew up the extremely realistic final May 1976 high school days of a group of Texas…

Melissa McCarthy’s laughs as The Boss come despite her foul script

Melissa McCarthy us is our queen of comedy. The Boss won’t knock her off her thrown, no, what with her ample opportunities to use that wise timing, the familiar voice patterns, those physical pranks … Well, unless you’ve turned the channel on her long-running TV show Mike and Molly and subsequent rise on the big…

Sally Field hits the young crowd as Doris

Sally Field is so good as Doris Miller that you don’t know whether to love, hate or feel sorry for the sixtysomething running from her home on Staten Island to the office in Brooklyn. And what makes Hello, My Name Is Doris Miller so darn interesting is that it seems perfectly natural to do all…

Woodley works hard to keep allegiance to Divergent franchise

Even the followers of the novels of Veronica Roth had to be wondering what Tris Prior and her band of never-very-merry followers would find on the other side of that wall around Chicago in the latest installment of this dramatic action franchise. And those who come to this third part unread of her YA work,…

Sacha Baron Cohen lands extreme gross out with Brothers Grimsby

Here’s a list of the obviously warm and fuzzy elements in The Brothers Grimsby, in order of significance: Love of family. Devotion to friends. Conviction to beliefs. Connection to community. Here’s a list of the potentially offensive segments of the latest installment in the career of Sacha Baron Cohen: Gratuitous sex. Forced sex act with…

Tina Fey’s serious side wins the battle in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Kim Baker sits in a news meeting cracking wise when her producer asks the single and childless around him who volunteers to be shipped for war coverage duty in Kabul. Better than breaking into tears like one of her peers, you can see in the eyes of Tina Fey as she sets the scene for…

Eddie the Eagle won’t win history medals, but nails the landing anyway

By all accounts, writers Sean Macauley and Simon Kelton took a lot of liberties while crafting the story that director Dexter Fletcher brings to the screen in Eddie the Eagle. And they had a lot to work with to begin with, the way plucky but cash-poor Brit non-athlete Michael “Eddie” Edwards absolutely refused to give…