Bernard Boo's Movie Reviews
All movie reviews written by Bernard Boo
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Cheap Thrills
Like an alternative, bite-size version of Breaking Bad, first-time director E.L. Katz’s gruesome comedy Cheap Thrills takes an unassuming suburban family man named Craig (Pat Healy) and exposes a repressed, dark side of his psyche via the sinful temptation of money. What...
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Divergent
With with young actresses emerging as bankable leads in sci-fi and action pictures, taking a bit of the pie from their hulking male counterparts, casting the right actress in those lead roles is more crucial than ever. Jennifer Lawrence...
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Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq
A true story of physical tragedy and spiritual triumph, dance doc Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq chronicles the rise, fall, and rebirth of Le Clercq (known by friends as Tanny), one of the most legendary figures in dance. Under...
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Child’s Pose
One of Romania’s most prominent actors, Luminita Gheorghiu bolsters her already glowing track record with Child’s Pose, a somber, hopeless mother’s tale painted in shades of grey. Directed by Calin Peter Netzer, the film won the Golden Bear at...
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Love & Demons
Love and Demons opens with San Francisco-based writer-director J.P. Allen, playing a demon named “Mister D.”, addressing the camera directly, delivering a chilling monologue, assessing the lives of mortals like you and I from a devil’s-eye view. “Let me...
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The Face of Love
The Face of Love has a premise that would prove a challenging sell for any filmmaker. Annette Bening plays a widow named Nikki who, five years after the death of her husband Garrett (Ed Harris), sees a man who...
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Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me
Elaine Stritch has one of the most enduring careers of any performer on earth. She’s an irreplaceable Broadway veteran, drawing thousands of eyes and ears with her skyscraper legs and unmistakeable, gaudy vocal delivery. Her television career started in...
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The Lunchbox
It’s hard not to like a love story whose lovers are brought together by a home-cooked meal. Make it an Indian home-cooked meal, with aromatic curries and slow-cooked vegetables, and it’s borderline irresistible. Aside from eliciting tummy rumbles, Ritesh...
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Visitors
In 1982, Godfrey Reggio altered the cinematic landscape with Koyaanisqatsi, an immaculate, haunting film composed of documentary footage of life on earth that pondered the fraught relationship between man, modernity, and nature. This film, along with the other two documentaries...
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The Rocket
In an early sequence in The Rocket, a Laos-set underdog fable by Australian filmmaker Kim Mordaunt, we see our 10-year-old hero Ahlo (Sitthiphon Disamoe, whose chin is perpetually tilted upward in pride) submerged in ethereal blue-green water, exploring the bottom...