Cinema
Films showing in the St. Louis region
THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS film review – by Mark Glass
– by Mark Glass – How could this film NOT have been better? Jack Black and Cate Blanchett star as a nice warlock and witch, respectively. Black suddenly becomes the guardian of a timid young nephew (Owen Vaccaro) whose parents died in an accident. Black lives in a delightfully creepy old house with tons of…
LIZZIE film review – by Cate Marquis
Chloe Sevigny, Kristen Stewart cut deep in psychological thriller LIZZIE, based on Lizzie Borden ax murders – By Cate Marquis – Lizzie Borden and the unsolved ax murders of her parents have remain in the public imagination, perhaps in part due to that memorable childhood rhyme about 40 whacks. Andrew and Abby Borden were found…
PEPPERMINT film review – by Mark Glass
– by Mark Glass – As bloody revenge flicks go, this one turns out to be surprisingly gratifying. Jennifer Garner may seem an unlikely vigilante, but she kicks plenty of bad-guy butt for perfectly valid reasons in this vehicle. She plays a loving wife and mother who suffers a tragic, undeserved loss. Five years later,…
MEMOIR OF WAR film review – by Cate Marquis
Melanie Thierry is haunting in French-language MEMOIR OF WAR based on Marguerite Duras’ novel of her experiences in WWII Paris – By Cate Marquis – Melanie Thierry gives a haunting performance in director Emmanuel Finkiel’s finely-crafted MEMOIR OF WAR. This beautiful and powerful French-language drama is an adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ partly-autobiographical novel “The War:…
HOTEL ARTEMIS film review – By Mark Glass
Jodie Foster excels with understated lead role in dystopian-future crime thriller – By Mark Glass – 3 stars of 5, Rated R As crime thrillers go, this one is fairly intense. Among those set in some sort of dystopian future, it’s more of a head-scratcher. This Los Angeles exists in a time of water deprivation…
THE SEAGULL film review
Anton Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL is great material for a first-rate film. Director Michael Mayer’s screen adaptation of Chekhov’s 1896 play is a visually lovely production with a top-tier cast with wonderful locations, sets and costumes. “The Seagull”was the first of Chekhov’s four great plays, a work full of human meaning, and one of the great…
RBG film review
– By Cate Marquis – RBG is a delightful, inspiring documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the Notorious RBG, giving us the backstory of the 84-year-old Supreme Court justice who has become a pop culture icon. Long before she became known as the Notorious RBG, Ginsberg was a brilliant legal mind who was a courtroom ground-breaker in…
ON CHESIL BEACH film review
– By Cate Marquis – The heartbreaking romantic drama ON CHESIL BEACH stars Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle as a young couple in the early 1960s, whose marriage feels the impact that the sexual attitudes of a time period can have on love. Based on Ian McEwan’s 2007 Booker Prize-winning novella. McEwan also wrote the…
DEADPOOL 2 film review
**** (out of 5) stars – (R) – By Mark Glass – The first film about this Marvel Comics superhero (of sorts) is one of my all-time favorite action comedies. Ryan Reynolds – not known for acting as much as hunkiness – found the perfect role, allowing him to be physical, hilarious, and self-satirical, wrapped…
DISOBEDIENCE film review
– By Cate Marquis – In DISOBEDIENCE, Rachel Weisz stars as a woman who returns to her Orthodox Jewish community in London for the funeral of her father, a revered rabbi. Years earlier, Ronit (Weisz) had left the community she had grown up in, forced out over a sexual attraction to another girl, Esti (Rachel…