Near the end of the new action headache “Bullet Train” a character is trying to stop the titular train as it speeds out of control. Desperately trying every switch and button he screams for the roaring machine to stop. 

After the first forty-five minutes of “Train” I wanted the same thing. 

“Bullet Train” is a live-action cartoon of violence and over-the-top madness

“Ad astra,” the new film by James Gray, is more meditation than story. The title (one half of the latin phrase “per aspera ad astra” or “through hardships to the stars”) is apt given the amount of time travel and the fascinating hardware that allows it, though the tale meanders, causing some confusion. With various stellar transportation modes, it takes us from one distant planet to the next without a clear mission statement. Basically, the quest

I think cinema, I love cinema, I see a great number of films during the year and always have. If asked to list great director names, I would reply, Fellini, Bergman, Fassbinder, Kurosawa and Kubrick. Though a hundred names would barely begin to cover it. But… and oh, yes, Tarentino. Despite not much enjoying his movies—too much violence, albeit often humorous, rivers of blood, and a permanent agitation—I believe I’ve seen all his films since “Reservoir Dogs.”

This year, there was a before- and an after-Tarantino Cannes Festival. Quentin Tarantino's new film “Once upon a time in Hollywood” was the marker. And it was also the most anticipated film of the 2019 festival. What a party! There is no other American auteur who can command the kinds of huge crowds like the ones seen yesterday in Cannes, when he and the cast walked the red carpet. The Croisette was on fire! (and the day after

It is a fact, sadly, that addiction will touch almost everyone’s lives, even the most accomplished among us. This is what happened to Nic Sheff, a top-of-his-class teen who started experimenting with pot before moving into harder drugs, gradually spiraling into a harrowing cycle of highs, lows, homelessness, sobriety and relapse. His father, Rolling Stone writer David Sheff, could only watch helplessly as Nic’s roller-coaster ride became worse

Oh, what, you want to talk about “Allied,” the film?

Where’s the fun in that? Wouldn’t you rather talk about Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Marion Cotillard? Popcorn, please! Look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. Would you really rather go in-depth on the art direction? Twice Brad Pitt has made espionage movies about a spy married to a woman who might be

Among movies about race in America, how many great films have been made about slavery? We’ve seen gentle drivers ("Driving Miss Daisy"), sisterhoods of maids ("The Help") and pizza places going up in smoke for our sins ("Do the Right Thing"). Most of these films focus on the sixties or the modern day. Even Lincoln barely touches on slavery as more than legal theory.

This enormous gap

"World War Z" may be the first film in which the cast exceeds the actual population of the planet. There are huge citywide vistas of rambling crowds. Most of these people are infected with a zombie virus that turns them into rattlesnakes with overbites and clammy hair.

These elements pay off quickly in a fantastic opener set in a traffic jam in downtown Philadelphia. Amid startling car-smashing, Brad

“Killing them Softly” is an expression I never understood but I'll guess that if one needed to kill softly, Brad Pitt’s Jackie would be the right man for the job. “Softly,” writer-director Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of the George V. Higgins novel “Cogan’s Trade," (itself a follow-up to “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford") is the Weinstein Company contender for an Academy Award this year. It’s not going to

No one wants to watch a movie about the Yankees. No one wants to watch Throwing Money At It: Superstars, Dollar Signs, and Left-handed Relief Pitching. No one wants to hear the story about how the Pinstripes used their massive financial advantages to hire the best coaches, scouts and players in order to forge an American League dynasty--and guess what: they did it! There is no market in the American imagination for the Goliaths of Gotham. We love the