We’ve got an uninspiring Denzel Washington thriller and a gaggle of stop-motion monsters to close out the month of September. Thankfully, next week brings one of the first prestige releases of the Fall, Gone Girl.
The Equalizer: Denzel Washington re-teams with his hit-or-miss Training Day director Antoine Fuqua for this update of the 1980’s television series. Of course, things are a little more “Man on Fire“ than “lightweight, 44-minute CBS spy drama” here.
The film received the highest test scores for an R rated film in Sony history, although critics seem iffy on the whole thing. Seems like something best watched on Starz in eight months.
Trailer: Youtube Rotten Tomatoes: 58% Metacritic: 57
Personal interest factor: 3
The Boxtrolls: Stop-motion thing of some kind. I don’t really care, do you? Watch The Nightmare Before Christmas instead.
Trailer: YouTube Rotten Tomatoes: 71% Metacritic: 63
Personal interest factor: 0
For classic fare: The Criterion in New Haven is running The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Friday and Saturday evening and The Hustler (1961) Saturday and Sunday morning.
The Whitney Humanities Center at Yale is screening Carmen Jones (1954) and School Daze (1988) on Saturday as part of their African American Affinity Group Film Festival. More details here.
Gone Elsewhere 
Saw ‘The Equalizer’ the other night. First 30 minutes or so as a brooding character study were fairly good with Washington in his element. Then it becomes a vicious, cartoonish thriller and on those terms for the next hour or so it was OK if you like that sort of thing.
But from the scene late in the film where you actually see the cliche of a character coolly walking away from a mass explosion that he’s set off in total seriousness, the film pretty much lost me and became a wheeze to get through by the end. That Washington’s character seemed to have less vulnerability than Superman didn’t help matters.