Category: Eleanor Ringel Cater

“Denial” is respectful, respectable and precisely the sort of film Stanley Kramer might’ve made. Trouble is, Kramer’s heyday was in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Meaning that, while exceptionally well-intentioned, “Denial” is also a bit dull.

Fortunately, dull isn’t always synonymous with boring. “Denial” certainly holds your interest. Plus, it offers a performance by Rachel Weisz that’s anything but dull.

Dreary and confusing, “The Girl on the Train” goes off the rails early. And stays there.

Whatever allure Paula Hawkins’ best-seller has – and it must be considerable, given the number of people asking about the movie – it’s sadly lacking in this mopey adaptation.

By Eleanor Ringel Cater

Arriving amid a swirl of controversy, rumors and standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival, “The Birth of a Nation” is a powerhouse of a picture.

Writer/director/star Nate Parker has taken a little-known moment in American history and slammed it home with extraordinary force. In 1831, a Virginia slave named Nat Turner led a bloody revolt against the white plantation owners and their families (Yes, he murdered women and children). The rebellion was brief – only 48 hours – but around 60 people were killed. The uprising was subsequently used to justify harsher laws against African-Americans.

“Snowden” is a snooze.

It’s also the least Oliver Stone-ish movie Oliver Stone has ever made.

Stone comes by his rep as a hot-button director legitimately. His movies stir people up. Sometimes rightly – “Platoon,” say, or “Salvador.” Sometimes wrongly – “Alexander” or “The Doors.” And sometimes, it seems Stone is being crazy just for the sake of drawing attention to his work – “JFK” comes to mind.

When we last saw Bridget Jones (2004), she was singleton no more, having finally found Mr. Right, aka, Mr. Darcy. But that was a dozen years ago and in “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” we (and she) are apparently back where she (and we) started: Sitting alone in her flat on her birthday, gobbling down a cupcake with one candle on it.

No, this isn’t the bad old days of self-loathing calorie-counting notations in her infamous diary. Bridget (Renee Zellweger) has another sort of female trouble, the sort you can’t diet away.

Something just isn’t right with “The Light Between the Oceans.” But just what, exactly, that something is isn’t easy to define.

Based on a 2012 book by Australian author, M.L. Stedman, the movie takes place shortly after World War I. Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) has come back with his body intact – many vets, the film reminds us, did not. But his head is, well, let’s say that something in him is broken to the point where a job tending a lighthouse on a lonely, storm-tossed island off the coast of Australia sounds like a good idea.

Easily a candidate for dozens of Best of 2016 lists, “Hell or High Water” is one of those rare movies that feels exactly right from the get-go.

Five minutes in, you know you’re in good hands – that this picture is going to take care of you and take you along, almost effortlessly. It makes you realize how disappointingly thin most of the year’s movies have been.

The new movie “Equity” evokes its cutthroat Wall Street world with admirable efficiency.

“18 Macallan, no ice” is how one orders a drink. The special at the expensive restaurant where everyone lunches is Tasmanian Sea Trout. And elliptical Big Brother Speak along the lines of, “The perception is that you rubbed people the wrong way,” is code for “You’re fired.”

It’s one of the oldest jokes in The Biz: Dying is easy; comedy is hard.

Heartbreaking, too, as we see “Don’t Think Twice,” an absolute gem of a film about a New York improv troupe called The Commune. Though the company’s membership has changed over the years, the stalwarts we see here – most of them in their mid-thirties (or older) – have been together for a while. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, as they ritualistically remind each other before each performance, they have each other’s backs.

Deliciously arch and impeccably crafted, “Florence Foster Jenkins” is based on the true story of a woman with a heart of gold and an ear of tin.

That’s she’s played by Meryl Streep is, perhaps, inevitable. But that doesn’t make it any less of a treat.

“Nine Lives,” in which – spoiler alert!!! – Kevin Spacey briefly inhabits the body of a large cat named Mr. Fuzzypants, isn’t likely to enter the record books as the best kiddie movie of 2016. Or the best kiddie movie of the summer. Or even the best kiddie movie this August; after all, the remake of “Pete’s Dragon” is opening next weekend.

But the thing is so darn retro, so darn, well, “That Darn Cat,” that it has a peculiar appeal.

Woody Allen is tired.

And no wonder. He’s made a film a year (as director, writer, star or sometimes all three) ever since 1965. On occasion – to paraphrase what they used to say about Neil Simon (remember him?) – Allen’s made a movie even when he didn’t really have a movie to make.

The kids are all right in the excellent new film, “Captain Fantastic.”

But Dad? That’s a completely different matter.

“Why are you pretending to catch ghosts?” asks world-renowned “ghost debunker” Martin Heiss in the new “Ghostbusters.”

Why indeed? After all, these ghostbusters are – gasp – female, a notion so catastrophic that a zillion trillion Blog Boys have had something akin to a collective meltdown. That Heiss is played by Bill Murray, one of the original ghostbusters back in 1984 (and, again in the so-so sequel), only adds to the “take that, misogynist idiots” joke.