20th Century Women (2016)
Mike Mills writes and directs this textured semi-autobiographical drama, set in Santa Barbara in 1979 after the women’s liberation movement and free love have made way for a bohemian existence for the laid-back seaside...
by Vincent Leo · Published January 28, 2017 · Last modified November 22, 2019
Mike Mills writes and directs this textured semi-autobiographical drama, set in Santa Barbara in 1979 after the women’s liberation movement and free love have made way for a bohemian existence for the laid-back seaside...
by Vincent Leo · Published April 18, 2015 · Last modified September 17, 2018
A fairly interesting premise isn’t able to capitalize in this rather non-scary, non-thrilling entry in the low-budget horror genre that aims to bring things to the forefront of modern technology, and yet, at its...
2010s / Adventure / Science Fiction
by Vincent Leo · Published September 20, 2014 · Last modified November 13, 2019
YA adaptations are really beginning to make me Y-A-W-N. Yet another attempt to mine from a series of sci-fi dystopia Young Adult novels in order to try to replicate the box office success of...
by Vincent Leo · Published December 15, 2012 · Last modified November 22, 2019
It’s the day before Samantha Baker’s (Ringwald) older sister’s wedding. It’s also Samantha’s birthday. While her family all fuss and fret over the nuptials, they forget entirely Sam on her ‘Sweet 16’. The embarrassing grandparents...
2010s / Action / Superhero / Thriller
by Vincent Leo · Published August 17, 2010 · Last modified June 12, 2019
Many before me have commented that Kick-Ass, the movie, is also a kick-ass movie, and I’ll just say that I agree with that assessment. Having been a minor fan of the Mark Millar/John Romita Jr....
1980s / Comedy / Drama / Romance
by Vincent Leo · Published March 15, 2009 · Last modified August 6, 2018
The 1980s were full of “wrong side of the tracks” romances, from Valley Girl to Say Anything, and in Pretty in Pink, screenwriter John Hughes (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Mr. Mom) tells the story from the perspective of a lower-class...
Lily (Huffman, The Spanish Prisoner) drives her delinquent, habitually-lying 17-year-old daughter, Rachel (Lohan, Chapter 27), to Idaho to stay with her strict grandmother, Georgia (Fonda, Monster-in-Law), in the hopes that she will learn to behave. Rachel doesn’t even...
In the mid-1980s, it seemed that writer-director John Hughes (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles) could no no wrong. That’s certainly the case with The Breakfast Club, the most adult of his teen pictures, and certainly...
Foxes is a coming-of-age story revolving around four teenage girls living in the Los Angeles area, trying their best to deal with raging hormones, peer pressure, drugs, sex, booze, and family demands. Jeanie (Foster, Taxi Driver) is...
by Vincent Leo · Published August 11, 2006 · Last modified November 29, 2019
First-time writer-director Rian Johnson’s script for Brick was written shortly after film school in the mid-1990s, during a period when he had read just about any Dashiell Hammett book he could get his hands on. ...
Reviews from film writer Vince Leo, covering all eras and genres of films from classics to the latest releases.
Film reviews from Vince Leo, from classics to new releases, since 1996.