Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson is the perfect hero in an epic account of an earthquake that ravages California; Bill Pohlad studies Brian Wilson’s musical perfectionism.
Alex Garland's "Ex Machina" is a deceptive movie about deceptions, most of all about the very human tendency to deceive oneself in order to feel needed.
Emma Thompson has descried fairy-tale possibilities in the facts of Effie Gray's story; Kenneth Branagh does moderately well with an expedient "Cinderella."
The resonances of "It Follows" are varied and strange, touching on subtexts sexual, ethical, and sociological. The horrors in " '71" are frightening for being true.
