- John Hansen
- July 4, 2019
‘Wimbledon’ (2004) serves up tennis and romance
Making a great fictional tennis movie is a tall order. The sport is naturally cinematic and filled with personal drama, and there’s no way made-up
‘Wimbledon’ (2004) serves up tennis and romance
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- John Hansen
- July 1, 2019
Mamet play gets turned into ‘About Last Night’ … twice
Although the two versions of “About Last Night” are one and two degrees removed from David Mamet’s stage play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” – on
- John Hansen
- June 29, 2019
‘Amazing Spider-Man’ (2012) experiments with a darker tone
Like what the Dark Knight Trilogy is to the 1990s “Batman” movies, and what the 21st century “Superman” films are to the Christopher Reeve versions,
- John Hansen
- June 27, 2019
‘What We Do in the Shadows’ (2014) stretches out one funny joke
“What We Do in the Shadows” (2014) opens with a close-up of an alarm clock going off, followed by a hand reaching out of a
- John Hansen
- June 24, 2019
‘Vanya on 42nd Street’ (1994) is a clever, money-saving film
“Vanya on 42nd Street” (1994) is structured unlike anything I’ve seen before. It starts with the actors walking along the packed sidewalks of the Big
- John Hansen
- June 22, 2019
‘Always Be My Maybe’ is exactly what you think it is – but not entirely to its detriment (Movie review)
You know what kind of movie “Always Be My Maybe” (Netflix) is, and the people who made it know what kind of movie it is,
- John Hansen
- June 22, 2019
‘Punisher’ gets reimagined as a gore flick in ‘War Zone’ (2008)
Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, finally got his full story told in the recent Netflix series, but before that, cinema took the tactic of reimagining
- John Hansen
- June 20, 2019
‘Us’ reviews
Summer’s review, May 12, 2019 John’s review, June 20, 2019
- John Hansen
- June 20, 2019
A second opinion: ‘Us’ is a boring piece of beautiful arthouse horror (Movie review)
Writer-director Jordan Peele’s “Us” reminds me of Alex Garland’s “Annihilation” (2018). Both are followups to a breakthrough piece of chilling sci-fi/horror that I and everybody
- John Hansen
- June 20, 2019
‘Ghostbusters’ (2016) leans into comedy, drops suspense
“Ghostbusters: Answer the Call” (2016) was labeled as ill-conceived before it came out, with people asking “Why remake a classic?” The good thing is that