Tag Archives: John Goodman

10 Cloverfield Lane review — Forget the original

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg | Written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle | 103 min | ▲▲▲△△ Back in 2008, Cloverfield scored box office gold with a canny marketing campaign and credible special effects, telling the story of a Godzilla-like attack on New York City through the eyes and camera of young, wealthy Manhattanites. It… Read More

Trumbo review — Blacklist blues

Directed by Jay Roach | Written by John McNamara, adapting a book by Bruce Cook | 124 min | ▲▲▲△△ One thing you can count on: Hollywood's interest in itself never flags. In this case, the interest is reasonably warranted: 25 years in the life of Dalton Trumbo, an esteemed screenwriter who had the poor fortune… Read More

The Monuments Men review

Directed by George Clooney Written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, adapting a book by Robert M. Edsel and Ben Witter I get that George Clooney has a love for some old-timey movies, the sort that move at a more leisurely pace and rely a great deal on the charm of the actors. He showed that… Read More

Inside Llewyn Davis review

Written and directed by Joel and Ethan CoenI love the Coens. They've carved out for themselves a wonderful, peculiar corner of Americana. No matter the subject, their films exhibit an intellectual, anarchic wit that's all their own. Only a handful of their peers, US filmmakers and writers—maybe Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Nicole Holofcener, Charlie… Read More

Flight review

Directed by Robert ZemeckisWritten by John GatinsFor the first time since 2000, when he had Cast Away and What Lies Beneath in cinemas, Zemeckis directs a live action drama. Originally a Spielberg acolyte, he's one of Hollywood's most reliable purveyors of widescreen entertainment. I certainly don't love all his work, but I can't deny the… Read More

Argo review

Directed by Ben AffleckWritten by Chris Terrio from a Joshuah Bearman article in Wired MagazineThis is a story I'm familiar with. My folks were in the Canadian diplomatic corps, so Canadian Ambassador to Iran in 1979, Ken Taylor, was something of a big deal in Dad's business. Taylor and his wife, Pat, helped get six… Read More