A blisteringly dark comedy from writer-director Martin McDonagh, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is fueled by the righteous anger that burns within Frances McDormand’s incredible lead performance.
Woody Harrelson
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Film review: ‘The Glass Castle’
Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s 2013 film, “Short Term 12,” was a sensitive story of troubled youth, told in a way that felt emotionally honest without ever pandering. He turned that tricky material into one of that year’s best films. One of “Short Term 12’s” key strengths was Brie Larson’s fantastic lead performance, and so it […]
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Film review: ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’
It seems appropriate that I heard news of director George Romero’s passing while leaving a showing of “War for the Planet of the Apes.” Romero was a master at using genre filmmaking as a lens through which to explore social issues like civil rights, consumerism, militarism, and xenophobia. The messages in Romero’s films were rarely […]
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“Out of the Furnace”
An odd prologue sets the tone and establishes the central subject of “Out of the Furnace.” Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), a rural drug dealer and gang leader, anonymous at that point in the film, watches a movie at a drive-in theater, complains of feeling nauseated, then when his girlfriend expresses concern, shoves a hot dog […]
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“Now You See Me”
Bank-robbing magicians is the basic idea behind “Now You See Me,” and it’s such a ridiculous and yet ingenious premise for a movie that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been done before now. The marriage of magic to the heist film genre is a natural fit; both require a fair amount of misdirection, sleight-of-hand, and […]
