'A Ghost Story' (2017) Movie Review

It’s like Casey Affleck won an Oscar for Manchester by the Sea and decided, “You know what? Acting is hard. For my next movie I’m just going to wear a motherfucking sheet, stand there, and call it good.” And then he did, and that movie is David Lowery’s A Ghost Story.

Movie Review: 'Triple 9'

Heists, dirty cops, shifting loyalties, betrayal, constant tension, the Russian mob, more bullets than you can possibly count, copious explosions, an incredible cast, and the guy who directed both The Road and The Proposition. Ask me what I want in a movie and I’ll likely read off most of the things I just listed, all of which figure prominently in director John Hillcoat’s new crime film, Triple 9. All of the pieces are in place, and though this is a solid, grim offering, one that I enjoyed well enough, Triple 9 never offers any surprises and watches like scraps of other crime movies stitched together in ways that don’t always fit. There are shades of Heat, Sicario, Training Day, and more, but the end result is a scattered, if exciting, dark, and passable thriller.

Movie Review: 'The Finest Hours'

When The Finest Hours, a movie about the true life heroism of a rag tag group of Coast Guard members battling a fierce New England storm in the early 1950s to save the stranded crew of a wrecked tanker, is actually about that, it’s not bad. Giant waves flinging various vessels around willy-nilly, a crew racing to the rescue, another struggling to stay afloat long enough for them to arrive; all of this works. The problem is whenever the movie does anything else.