Author: By Michael O’Sullivan The Washington Post
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Movie review: ‘American Animals’ proves true crime can be both entertaining and profound
Starring Barry Keoghan, Ann Dowd, Evan Peters, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson; directed by Bart Layton; 116 minutes; R for strong language throughout and some drug use. There are a few intriguing questions raised by “American Animals,” a fact-based drama about the four college-age men who, in 2004, attempted a misguided heist of rare books —…
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Movie review: ‘The Seagull’ is bloodless but brilliantly acted
Is it a contradiction to call “The Seagull,” the authoritative film adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1895 stage play, a peerlessly wrought interpretation of a theater classic, while also less than a great movie? It’s certainly a very good one. But something also is over-intellectualized and bloodless about this version. This despite the play’s well-known blood,…
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Movie review: After 14 years, a heroic, and meta, return in ‘Incredibles 2’
Fourteen years have passed since the animated superhero comedy “The Incredibles” burst into theaters. But when fans of the hit Pixar film sit down to the sequel – about a family of suburban crime-fighters who must hide their X-Men-like abilities from a world that has outlawed “supers” – 2004 might feel like only yesterday. The…
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Movie review: Yes, ‘Ocean’s 8’ is a heist movie, but it’s also an empowering, cheeky comedy
Starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling; directed by Gary Ross; 110 minutes; PG-13 for strong language, drug use and some suggestive material. Most every successful heist movie, like a heist itself, functions by obeying a well-defined formula. First comes the setup and backstory. Next up: the assembly of the…
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Movie review: Sci-fi love story of punks, aliens and loud guitars sounds weird but works
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” is a candy-colored sci-fi confection set in 1977 London, where Enn (Alex Sharp), a shy Clash fan, meets and falls in love with a pretty member of a colony of visiting extraterrestrials. The title notwithstanding, I hesitate to call this alien a “girl.” Although Zan’s character is played…
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A true story about a hijacking with an unexpected motif
“Seven Days in Entebbe” is, as its name suggests, a pretty conventional ticktock of the 1976 hijacking of an Air France jetliner en route from Tel Aviv to Paris by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Red Army Faction, a German leftist group. Or it would be conventional, were…
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Movie review: ‘The Strangers: Prey at Night’ a simple, stupid homage to cheesy horror
Starring Bailee Madison, Emma Bellomy, Lewis Pullman, Christina Hendricks, Lea Enslin, Damian Maffei; directed by Johannes Roberts; 81 minutes; R for horror violence and terror throughout and for coarse language. A follow-up to the 2008 cult horror hit “The Strangers,” “The Strangers: Prey at Night” isn’t really a sequel, at least not in the accepted…
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Movie review: Too bad ‘Masterminds’ wastes one of the year’s better comedy casts
Starring Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Jason Sudeikis, Owen Wilson, Leslie Jones; directed by Jared Hess; 94 minutes; PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, some language and violence. If there is a single shot in “Masterminds” that represents the intellectually and aesthetically untaxing comic spirit of this blithely lowbrow farce, it is the one…