DARK PLACES [2015]

In what seems like riding on the coattails of David Fincher's popular film adaptation of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, director Gilles Paquet-Brenner gives Dark Places a stab in the...dark.
A loner of a woman revisits the gruesome Satanic murders of her family, when she is agrees to take part in a club obsessed with horrific crimes of the past.
An impressive cast is assembled for an overly rushed script that lacks any sort of bite to it.  In fact the whole thing feels more like a TV movie of the week rather than a dark passageway into the character's minds like the novel did so well at doing.
It feels like themes and ideas are ready to be explored but nothing is really said or done about them and in the end it's nothing more than pointless, yet somewhat easy to watch pulp.

2½ rituals out of 5

BLACK MASS [2015]

After an extended string of crappy films, Johnny Depp returns to form in director Scott Cooper's American true crime film, Black Mass.
The film depicts the rise & fall of the infamous Irish-American crime boss, Whitey Bulger who became an FBI informant in order to get away with as much as he possibly could in Boston during the 70's and 80's.
Aided by an impressive cast, Depp gives a subtle yet empowering performance that kept me uncomfortably mesmerized.  However I couldn't help but feel the story needed a good extra hour of padding to really give it the impact it appeared to be aiming for.  There was so much going on that they briefly skimmed over, as a whole it never really explores anything we haven't seen before with a film like this.  In the end it's a slightly above average film with some really great performances.

3 confused doormen out of 5

ANT-MAN [2015]

Marvel's final film in their Phase Two series comes in the immensely entertaining form of director Peyton Reed's Ant-Man.
The always likable Paul Rudd is a talented thief who must pull off an intricate burglary with the aid of a suit that shrinks him to the size of, you guessed it, an ant.  The film might be light on substance and makes no attempt to reinvent the wheel but thanks to it's great cast, lightweight humor and dizzying Pixar-esque action sequences, it manages to hold together pretty well.  The movie knows it's a silly concept and it runs with it with flying colors never missing a chance to indulge in it's ridiculousness.  The behind-the-scenes trouble is evident but never detracts from the messy enjoyability of it all.  It takes all the fun of a Saturday morning cartoon, super-sizes it and then shrinks it down into something quite unique.  The New Avengers team is going to be a real breath of fresh air, if this is any indication of what's to come.

3½ web-heads out of 5

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU [2014]

Director Shawn Levy tones things down from his usual fare for the quiet dysfunctional family drama, This Is Where I Leave You.
After the death of their father, four big city siblings are forced to return to their suburban home to live with their mother for a week which reveals many things about their messy past, present and futures.  It saunters through overly familiar territory but with it's dynamic cast (not a weak link in the group), realistically written potty-mouthed script and amusing moments galore it still manages to capture the heart by the end.  As great as the cast is, there's just so damned many characters, some of the more interesting ones are never fully explored and you're left yearning for just a bit more.  In a way it's a delightful wasted opportunity that just narrowly missed the mark from becoming what it wants to be.

3 Jewish atheists out of 5