33 Best Releases From Warner Bros. Pictures Studio (Page 2)

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 coming-of-age drama The Outsiders, adapted from S.E. Hinton’s classic novel by the same name, is a dreamy, soft endeavor. Despite the gritty world in which the film’s protagonist Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell) exists, the film is a surprisingly sweet, earnest and vulnerable in a way that from some angles could be considered cloying, but ultimately succeeds in capturing the overwhelming and all-encompassing emotions of adolescence.  Continue Reading →

Excalibur was hardly the first film to be made based on the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table and it was hardly the last word on the subject either. The saga has inspired everything from a bloated musical (Camelot) to one of the funniest films ever made (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) to whatever that thing was that Guy Ritchie made that you have already forgotten even existed until just about now (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword). It may not even be the best screen version—I would have to give that prize to Holy Grail on the basis of being both hysterically funny and more accurate in its depiction of the period than most of its brethren (coconuts notwithstanding). Continue Reading →

Welcome to the Criterion Corner, where we break down some of the month’s new releases from the Criterion Collection. #1070: Secrets & Lies (1996), dir. Mike Leigh Secrets & Lies - Criterion One would be hard-pressed to find a more keenly-observed chronicler of everyday life than England's own Mike Leigh. While some of his films dabble in the historic and histrionic (Topsy-Turvy, Mr. Turner, Peterloo come to mind), it's in his modern-day profiles of the workaday Briton -- Life Is Sweet, Naked, Career Girls -- where his quiet, observational eye holds the most purchase. 1996's Secrets & Lies might well be the purest distillation of Leigh's kitchen-sink dramas; he touches on social issues of class and race, but only slightly, with none of the preachiness Ken Loach is occasionally guilty of. And in so doing, speaks volumes about those very issues while keeping its focus on its individual characters and how they navigate those spaces. Secrets & Lies is about two worlds colliding: one belongs to Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, masterful in her quiet calm), a successful middle-class optometrist who takes an interest in tracking down her biological mother after her adoptive one dies. The culprit, we learn, is Cynthia (a Cannes-winning performance from Brenda Blethyn), a brittle, middle-aged factory worker falling apart at the seams at her advancing years and her fractious relationships with her daughter and brother (a steady Timothy Spall). Hortense is Black; Cynthia is white -- dynamics that cause first confusion, then strife in these family dynamics, as Cynthia eventually brings Hortense into the explosive relationships around her. Continue Reading →

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a good movie. Its cast brings the famous DC superhero team to life through performances that range from reliably solid to very strong. Its action is clear, creative, and in a few places downright stupendous. Its thematic work is interesting, both on its own and in the greater context of its long and winding road to existence. There are multiple moments that qualify as full-on fantastic filmmaking, sequences that successfully connect western superheroes to the larger-than-life feeling of mystical Arthurian lore. To put it simply, I like it. I like it a bunch. Continue Reading →

At one point during Ghostbusters , Dan Aykroyd’s character is discussing the bizarre architectural features of the apartment building where much of the supernatural action takes place and says “I mean, the architect was either a certified genius or an authentic wacko.” My guess is that there was a similar reaction among executives at Warner Brothers after they took a look at the screenplay for Aykroyd’s other elaborate and expensive horror-comedy vehicle for him and a number of his SNL and SCTV pals. I cannot say for certain which side those suits would have opted for but however they voted, they did pull the trigger on what would eventually become known as Nothing But Trouble , a peculiarity that would bomb so hard that it is now pretty much forgotten by everyone except of SNL alumni film completists and the few souls brave or foolhardy enough to—gulp—actually find good things to say about it. Continue Reading →

(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.) Continue Reading →

Now in 2021, the pandemic rages on, and most of us find ourselves stuck in lockdowns with no end in sight. We’ve dealt with glitchy video calls, adventures in cohabitation, and are stuck with the isolation blues. Here to steal our attention away from the mess is Locked Down, a diverting heist/romance film from Doug Liman, starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Continue Reading →

I've been told that at Christmas Time, we are honest, so in that spirit, allow me to start this look back review with my own bit of honesty. I've seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button twice before watching it for this review. The first time I hated it. The second time, I hated it until I fell asleep about 20 minutes in. Continue Reading →

Altered States (1980) isn't so much a movie as it is a cinematic boxing match between two singular and diametrically opposed talents, duking it out to see whose approach will triumph in the end. Both combatants are unrepentant sluggers through and through, determined not just to win but to knock the other right out of the metaphorical ring. Oddly enough, it's the viewer who ends up feeling concussed. Even 40 years after its release, it boggles the mind that something like Altered States could have ever been produced in the first place, much less as an expensive A-level project for a major studio. Continue Reading →

First and foremost, Zodiac is a movie about seeing. Seeing patterns, seeing possibilities, seeing threads to pick up and follow, even if they don’t end up going anywhere. Like Se7en, a great deal of focus is on the tediousness of a murder investigation: the collecting and comparing of fingerprints, tired looking men discussing clues in dank, poorly-lit offices, sparring with the media, and endless, often pointless phone calls. The violence in Zodiac is shocking, but brief, reserved to the first half hour of the movie. Even the use of crime scene photos is kept to a minimum. Unlike Se7en, David Fincher isn’t rubbing the horrors we inflict on each other in the audience’s face. Here, it’s something more subtle, the creeping fear of I know I’m right...but what do I do now? Continue Reading →

In February 2017, Kim Jon-sam, the brother of Kim Jong-un, was walking through a Malaysian airport. Preparing for a flight back home to China, Jon-sam was suddenly hit with a substance by two women. Shortly after, Jon-sam developed a limp, went unconscious, and was dead within an hour. The brother of North Korea’s leader had died through exposure to a nerve agent called VX, one of the deadliest toxins on the planet. Continue Reading →

The DCEU embraces its inner Bugs Bunny, and is all the better for it. If you'd have told me two years ago that not only would I be looking forward to a sequel (such as it is) to 2015's murky, execrable Suicide Squad, but I'd end up really enjoying it, I'd have banished you to the darkest cell in Arkham Asylum. To be fair, David Ayer's overstuffed, underlit supervillain team-up came right at the wrong time: the product of post-Avengers superhero mania, but amidst the polarizing reactions to DCEU's so-called 'dark, gritty' approach to superheroes, it was the victim of a compromised vision of what was undoubtedly a bad idea in the first place -- reshoots, changes in tone, a final cut engineered by the house that did the trailers, etc. The one bright spot though? Margot Robbie's semi-Gothic-Lolita reinterpretation of the Joker's moll Harleen Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn), a brash, madcap figure imbued with scene-stealing energy by one of the greatest actors of her generation. Now, with Birds of Prey, Robbie's Quinn is given a vehicle worthy of her talents, a manically gleeful girl-power anthem that's just as energetic and irreverent as she is. As Birds of Prey (sorry, Birds of Prey: or the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) begins, the Joker's broken up with Harley. Good, great, we hated Leto's version of the Clown Prince of Crime anyway, get rid of him. Luckily, Harley gets over him just about as quickly as we do, blowing up the Ace Chemicals plant, dusting herself off, and trying to start a new life as a bounty hunter/mercenary/thug for hire. But before she can get that business off the ground, she finds herself wrapped up in a scheme involving a secret diamond laser-encoded with the numbers needed to access a secret bank account with all the crime money in the world. (Not quite an uncut gem, but you get my gist.) Continue Reading →