THE IRISHMAN (R)

As far back as I can remember I always wanted to paint houses

At the risk of opening up a comparative can of worms here, THE IRISHMAN is the AVENGERS: END GAME of Martin Scorsese films, which euphorically showcases the acclaimed Oscar winning director returning to the mafia drama after a long absence with all of his acting super heroes that have graced his previous films in tow, featuring the likes of Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel...

KNIVES OUT (PG-13)

The unusual suspects

After the disappointing and creatively wrongheaded STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, I’m very happy to report that writer/director Rian Johnson’s KNIVES OUT is a most welcome return to superb form for the filmmaker.  It’s an impeccably directed, ingeniously written, and superbly performed whodunnit murder mystery that has great, unbridled fun within the genre while transcending it all the same.  I've always thought highly of Johnson's work...

THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON

(PG-13) 1/2

The 1-2-3 kid

On paper, THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON comes off like an exploitative melodrama/buddy comedy road trip movie.  Its story is a deceptively simple one: A young care home residing man that suffers from Down Syndrome decides to break out and, with a little help from some new friends, seeks out a training school to become a professional wrestler...

FORD V FERRARI (R) 1/2

Dawn of auto justice

The new historical sports drama FORD V FERRARI is one of the more engaging and purely entertaining films of the fall thus far, bolstered by the absolutely winning the winning and charismatic tandem of Oscar winners Matt Damon and Christian Bale as well as its staggeringly impactful and technically brilliant racing sequences. The fact based tale chronicles how the Ford Motor Company...

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (R)

Won't you be my biopic neighbor...

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD comes out quite inopportunely after last year's truly wonderful and inspiring documentary WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?, which covered Fred Rogers' iconic life and times as part of PBS' MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD that ran over five decades.  That doc was a legitimate piece of feel good filmmaking in chronicling the unending goodness of Rogers and what he meant to multiple generations of children...

DOCTOR SLEEP (R)

Hello again, Danny...

Question: How does one take on the Herculean task of making a sequel to one of the most iconic horror films (and cherished Stanley Kubrick films) of all time, which in turn was loosely adapted from one of Stephen King's most well known novels?  Second Question:  How does one make a sequel movie that appeases both fans of Kubrick's work and King's literature? The short answer?  Very democratically and carefully...

MIDWAY (PG-13) 1/2

A remake which will mostly live in infamy

The new historical war drama MIDWAY is the second lavish budgeted silver screen account of one of the more instrumental battles and turning points for America's involvement in the Pacific Theater of World War II.  Taking place roughly six months after Japan's sneak attack on the U.S. bases at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Battle of Midway represented a major victory for the U.S. as they stopped an attacking and invading Japanese naval fleet.  Of course, this story was first told in movie form in the 1976 Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda starring war epic...

Posted November 21, 2019

JOJO RABBIT (PG-13) 1/2

It's definitely not a good time to be a Nazi

JOJO RABBIT is director Taika Waititi's newest self described "anti-hate satire" that tries to wag a sarcastic finger of shame at Nazi Germany.  The very idea of making a comedy about something that drums up endless nightmarish thoughts about a brutal historical regime and time period may not be everyone's cup of tea, but JOJO RABBIT is certainly not the first time that a filmmaker has tackled the Third Reich in a comedic vein (see Charlie Chaplin's THE GREAT DICTATOR, Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS, or Roberto Benigni's LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL)...

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

(R) 1/2

There's no dark sequel fate but what we make for ourselves

I've been awfully kind to the TERMINATOR sequels over the years.  To be sure, nothing in this already improbably long franchise has topped the higher echelons of James Cameron's original 1984 introductory chapter (which launched Arnold Schwarzenegger into pop culture action hero icon status) or his 1991 sequel in T2: JUDGMENT DAY (still one of the greatest action films ever made, not to mention one of the best pure sequels in existence).  The unavoidable TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES from 2003 (the first of many Cameron-less enterprises) was solid, but inessential...

THE ART OF SELF DEFENSE

(R) 1/2

SWEEP THE LEG, JESSE!

Writer/director Riley Stearns' THE ART OF SELF DEFENSE is one of 2019’s great cinematic curveballs.  It begins as a potential THE KARATE KID clone and then morphs into an ultra dark comedy that takes many unnerving and unpredictable twists and turns.  I found it to be a simultaneously hilarious and unexpectedly chilling commentary on toxic masculinity.  What Stearns has ultimately achieved here is an extremely tough balancing act: There's a deadpan and frequently amusing comedic element to the whole enterprise, but mixed in with that is the decidedly bleaker underbelly of a disturbing thriller...

ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP

(R)

It's time to nut up and shut up...again!

There have been so many zombie themed movies over the years that any new effort seeing the light of day has to work relative overtime in terms of infusing some innovation in this over-packed genre.  I think it's easy to forget what a relative breath of fresh air 2009's ZOMBIELAND was, which found a way of balancing gore and undead mayhem with a satiric sensibility that helped segregate it well apart from other offerings.  Cleverly amalgamating self-aware laughs, splatterhouse action sequences, and a very game cast that all seemed in on the subversive joke...

MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL

(PG-13) 1/2

Well...well...well...

Even though I didn't admire it altogether too much, I will give 2014's MALEFICENT kudos for one thing: It represented an attempt by Disney to produce a live action adaptation of one of its beloved animated classics that presented the mythology from the vantage point of the villain and not the hero.  Considering the unending slew of mediocre cash grabbing remakes that the studio has been somewhat lazily manufacturing as of late, MALEFICENT was a decidedly different breed in terms of how it re-imagined the cherished 1959 animated feature SLEEPING BEAUTY instead of just copy and pasting its storyline wholesale...

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME 

(No MPAA Rating) 1/2 

He handcuffed lightning and threw thunder's ass in jail!

Ruby Ray Moore wore many guises over the course of his colorful career, from musician, singer, actor, and movie writer and producer.  He's arguably best known for his contribution to the blaxploitation genre with his ultra low budget action comedy DOLEMITE in 1975, with the titular character seeing the initial light of day on a 1970 debut comedy album that managed to crack the top 25 on the Billboard charts...

THE LIGHTHOUSE (R)

Boredom...eviler than the devil

Certain sounds absolutely terrify me, especially ones that incessantly undulate in the background and get under my skin.  The new period psychological horror thriller THE LIGHTHOUSE - one of the best and strangest films of 2019 - contains one sound that proves to be particularly panic inducing: a bass rumbling foghorn.  It's like an omnipotent secondary character in its own right, and with every new blast of it comes an ever increasing sensation that something awful is lurking around every corner of the frame.  Very few films make you feel the isolating and traumatizing dread of its characters the way this one does...

GEMINI MAN (PG-13) 1/2

Attack of the clones!

Ang Lee's GEMINI MAN is a new sci-fi espionage thriller of some strange contradictions.  It represents a pretty astounding leap forward in the area of photo-realistic CGI, but at the same time it contains regressive minded, paint-by-numbers scripting that feels like the product of something that should have been released decades ago (the screenplay itself has laid dormant for years, with many a filmmaker trying to take on the material, but backing away when the VFX technology required for it wasn't up to snuff).  The basic premise for GEMINI MAN is an intriguing, if not somewhat derivative one...

EL CAMINO: 

A BREAKING BAD MOVIE 

(No MPAA Rating) 1/2 

Yeeeeah bitch, SEQUEL!!!!

The new Netflix original EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE serves as a sort of prequel, sort of sequel to the series finale of one of the greatest TV shows in history.  Of course, I'm referring to Vince Gilligan created AMC residing BREAKING BAD, which aired for five deeply memorable and tension filled seasons and concerned the financially struggling and cancer stricken high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston), who teamed up with one of his former students in Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to produce and sell crystal meth...

MIDSOMMAR (R) 1/2

Worst.  Eurotrip.  Ever..

MIDSOMMAR is the latest horror thriller from writer/director Ari Aster, who previously helmed the eerily atmospheric, frequently shocking, impeccably acted, but creatively inconsistent HEREDITARY.  That supernatural drama most assuredly introduced Aster as an absolute master of terrifying mood and chilling tension, but the film, at least for me (and I'm in the minority) really fell apart in its final act, which seemed to traverse down a rabbit hole of overused and obligatory genre troupes, which ultimately made it a hard film for me to wholeheartedly recommend....

JOKER (R)

An origin film that dances with devil in the pale moonlight

I needed time after screening JOKER to process all of its limitless complexities.  I resisted the urge to review it immediately after seeing it, mostly because I was still decompressing from it...even days later.  This is one of the most talked about films - in terms of pre and post release coverage - in recent memory, and one that has deeply polarized the media, critics, and fans alike (I'll deep dive into that in a bit).  With all of the smoke cleared I feel confident in just swinging for the fences by saying that JOKER is definitely one of the most dread inducing and depressingly disturbing films in a long while...

AD ASTRA (PG-13)

Into the space heart of darkness

James Gray's AD ASTRA (which is Latin for "to the stars") is an unqualified and masterful triumph.  Not only does this represent an absolute technical marvel that frequently inspires legitimate awe and wonder, but it's also a decidedly rare breed of sci-fi star trekking effort that's more nuanced, thoughtful, and thematically ambitious and contemplative.  The film is a visual dynamo, yes, but despite its embarrassment of production riches AD ASTRA isn't slavishly reliant on VFX and mindless mayhem like most other bloated space epics...

RAMBO: LAST BLOOD (R) 1/2

A good supply of body bags sequel

It's been an awfully long road for Jonathon James Rambo since he was introduced in the early 1970s in Canadian author David Morrell's novel FIRST BLOOD.  That book spawned a movie adaptation in 1982, which delved into the back story of this former Green Beret Vietnam War vet that faced a different type of war trying to acclimate to his home country after combat, facing a nation of citizens that didn't think highly of the war and his involvement in it.  That gave way to the more aggressively cartoonish, but nevertheless entertaining RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II...

BETWEEN TWO FERNS: 

THE MOVIE 

(No MPAA Rating) 1/2 

Between an interview rock and a hard place

The new Netflix original comedy BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE takes its name and premise from the faux online celebrity interview show of the same name hosted by Zach Galifianakis (playing a version of himself) that was born on FUNNY OR DIE in 2008.  As the very specific title obviously demonstrates, the web series had the actor - in various states of being laughably idiotic and misinformed - aggressively interview various movie stars...

SHAFT (R) 1/2

This rebootquel is a bad mutha...shut yer mouth...it's just bad

The original 1971 SHAFT was an urban detective noir that helped usher in the "blaxploitation" genre into the mainstream during its decade in question, and also made star Richard Roundtree a bona fide box office star and sex symbol.  That film spawned multiple sequels, as well as a sort of sequel, sort of reboot in 2000, directed by the late John Singleton and featuring everyone's favorite mutha f-bomb delivering star Samuel L. Jackson assuming the titular role (it turned out that he was actually Roundtree's Shaft's nephew)...

IT: CHAPTER TWO (R) 1/2

A second pennywise for your thoughts

IT: CHAPTER TWO falls victim to the pratfalls of many sequels in terms of mistakenly believing that bigger equates to better.  Whereas the 2017 prequel film (and massive box office hit) did a solid job of adapting Stephen King's source material (albeit with some fairly unobtrusive tweaks and changes here and there), this unavoidable follow-up suffers from an egregiously long winded running time, some unwieldy scripting, and many questionably lazy creative choices overall...

THE GOLDFINCH (R) 1/2

As enthralling as paint drying on the wall

I experienced two overwhelmingly positive feelings during my experience of screening THE GOLDFINCH:  (1) The moment I entered the cinema with hope and optimism before the film began and (2) the moment I left the cinema when it was over. I pondered a lot about this film on my car ride home, but the prevailing thought that came to mind while watching - make that enduring - THE GOLDFINCH was "Brotman's Law" (named after the famous Chicago movie exhibitor Oscar Brotman): If nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen...

THE FANATIC (R) zero stars

Pulp friction

THE FANATIC is a new stalker thriller of embarrassing, almost unfathomable awfulness, made all the inexcusably disposable because it contains one of the most wrongheaded performances by a former multiple Academy Award nominee that I can frankly recall.  Imagine I AM SAM cross bred with MISERY and THE FAN - except more creatively bankrupt - and you'll have a rough approximation of this inept piece of sensationalistic trash...

ISN'T IT ROMANTIC (PG-13)

A romcom within a romcom

I've frequently complained about the relative sameness of romcom entries, with so many that have been released over the years all feeling like they're made of the same regurgitated parts.  ISN'T IT ROMANTIC is, at least in some decent respects, an antidote this genre's most overused conventions, not to mention that it's a solid starring vehicle for Rebel Wilson (her solo debut).  It's a romantic fantasy that offers up a pretty intoxicating premise ripe for all sorts of comic possibilities...

ANGEL HAS FALLEN (R) 1/2

A bad day to die hard

To this very day I've find myself still defending my 3.5 star review of the 2013 DIE HARD clone OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN.  That Antoine Fuqua directed, Gerard Butler staring action vehicle never once hid the fact that it was a beyond obvious knock-off of the iconic 1988 Bruce Willis franchise/genre starter, but it emerged as one of the finest emulators of that cherished and very overused template and wholeheartedly delivered on successfully riffing on the bombastic films of a bygone era.  Having said that, I never thought that the superbly engineered OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN was requiring sequels...

MA (R)

Big momma's house of horrors

MA is a new entry in an increasingly generic psychological thriller genre featuring deeply unhinged psychopaths that initially manage to find a way to befriend a small group of people with false displays of amiability before later being revealed as being dangerously unhinged and, well, full-on evil.  This Blumhouse produced effort concerns a group of partying teenagers who become close with a lonely middle aged woman that gives them access to booze and her basement to party...but then she's revealed to be an unchecked nutjob.  There's one thing that helps elevate this fairly pedestrian material: the presence of lead actress Octavia Spencer in the stalker role...

READY OR NOT (R) 1/2

Here we come!

Just when you thought that the summer film season was all but over and done along comes READY OR NOT to emerge as one of the season's real eleventh hour diamond in the rough delights.  This viscerally nasty, but darkly hysterical screwball horror comedy benefits greatly from two things: (1) a wickedly nifty premise and (2) one of the most thanklessly committed genre performances of the summer (if not the year) by newcomer Samara Weaving, who runs the absolute emotional and physical gauntlet here in a very tricky role...

GOOD BOYS (R)

Bean Bag Boyz 4Life!

If your idea of a good time at the cinema is to spend 90 minutes watching a movie featuring six graders drop frequent f-bombs - and many, many other naughty words that would make the personas of GOODFELLAS cringe - then look no further than the paradoxically titled GOOD BOYS.  As for the rest of you...be afraid...be very afraid.  Okay, sarcasm aside, let me engage in some hard hitting truth bombing on you all.  Kids swear.  Sometimes...a lot...

THE HUSTLE (PG-13)

A dirty rotten remake

Announced in 2016, shot in 2017, and then very unceremoniously dumped in cinemas this year, THE HUSTLE is a remake of a remake that's inexcusable in its wretchedness.  The grifter comedy - with the latter word being used loosely - is a remake of the splendid 1988 Steve Martin and Michael Caine classic DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, which, in turn, was adapted from the Marlon Brando and David Niven headlined 1964 film BEDTIME STORY...

TOLKIEN (PG-13) 1/2

One paint-by-numbers biopic that doesn't rule them all

Outside of my basic knowledge that he wrote some of the most cherished and iconic fantasy novels of the 20th Century, I really don't profess to be an expert or scholar on the life and times of James Ronald Reuel Tolkien, known the world over as J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator of, yes, THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy.  Often considered the father of modern fantasy literature, there's simply no denying his massive influence and importance for the genre, which also spawned one of the most critically and audience adored film trilogies ever made...

STOCKHOLM (R)

A dog of a movie to not watch in the afternoon

The new fact based crime drama STOCKHOLM takes its name from, yes, the Swedish city, but the film is also based on a 1974 Daniel Lang New Yorker article that concerned a real-life bank robbery and hostage situation that occurred at a major bank in the city.  Taking place at Norrmalmstorg square in Stockholm in 1973, this well publicized incident - one of the first criminal events to be broadcast on live TV in the nation - helped coin the term "Stockholm Syndrome"...

THE FAST AND FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW

(PG-13) 1/2

The Transporters

To quote its full and somewhat awkwardly assembled titled, FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW is the very first spin-off entry in the seemingly impervious to death franchise that was arguably born out of a reported clashing of two massive action hero egos.  Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel apparently did not like being in each other's presence while on set of the last F&F film, which meant that separating the pair and giving the former his own entry proved inevitable...

I AM MOTHER

(No MPAA Rating)

Never to part...baby of mine...

The new Netflix film I AM MOTHER is an atypically handsome looking and thoughtfully scripted sci-fi genre effort for the streaming network, one that refreshingly favors compelling themes and empowered performances over bombastic action and VFX overkill.  Based ever so loosely on the young adult novel THE SEARCH FOR WONDLA by Tony DiTerlizzi, this Grant Sputore helmed film represents a solid feature debut for the Australian director...

Posted August 17, 2019

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

(R) 1/2

And the industry lived happily ever after

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino was just a wee young lad in 1969 when he was growing up in the City of Angels, with both that year and location serving of prominent importance to his ninth directorial effort in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.   Los Angeles is, of course, a legendary place deeply entrenched in moviemaking that, by the filmmaker's own admission, has indelibly shaped his life and career.  The film's title hints at not only its fairy tale trappings...

CRAWL (R)

Here comes the story of the hurricane...

CRAWL is two movies for the price of one.  It's a monster horror flick about a real life aquatic creature wreaking havoc on a deeply vulnerable family and it's also an outdoor survival drama concerning a dangerous force of Mother Nature baring down on the same said family.  There's not much here that really reinvents the genre wheel, and the Alexandre Aja (PIRANHA 3D) directed and Sam Raimi/Blumhouse produced effort plays into the playbook of those aforementioned types of films without straying too much away from them...

THE INTRUDER (PG-13)  zero stars

SOMEONE CALL THE COPS ON THE MAKERS OF THIS FILM!!!

Two things dawned on me while watching the new home invasion thriller THE INTRUDER: 1. Star Dennis Quaid is impossibly ripped for a man that's five years away from 70.  2. This movie really sucks. THE INTRUDER is a double dipping offender:  It's not just an artistically lazy film, but also a wholeheartedly unnecessary one...

THE LION KING 

(PG-13)

A broken circle of life

I covet the original 1994 LION KING as highly as anybody.  Disney's 32nd and sumptuously 2D animated feature arguably represented the highest artistic and commercial plateau for the House of Mouse during that era (it came just four years into the company's new renaissance and ended up being the highest grossing film of its year and still remains the biggest money making 2D animated effort in existence)...

AFTER (PG-13)

Unhappily ever after

The new young adult romance drama AFTER is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Anna Todd that's so insipidly scripted that one has to question how the book version even saw the publishing light of day.  It tells a story of hopeless mediocrity and numbing predictability about a young "nice girl" college freshman that finds herself falling for a "bad boy" that has multiple issues...

STUBER (R)

RIDE SHARE: THE MOVIE!

STUBER - which takes its name as an amalgam of the name of one of its lead characters and the world famous ride sharing company - is another in an awfully long line of throwback buddy cop action comedies that feels like it's made of regurgitated parts from countless other films.  It wallows in a considerable amount of formulas and conventions, not to mention that its premise, on paper, is pretty silly...

THE BEACH BUM  (R) 1/2

Consider the 'McConaughnaissance' over...

Watching THE BEACH BUM was akin to being forced to spend 90 straight minutes with an annoyingly dislikeable goon that simply won't leave you alone despite all efforts on your part to tell him to "go away!"  It was one of the most thoroughly unpleasant filmgoing experiences that I've had this year, which was made all the more unpleasant when one considers that there's sizeable talent in front of and behind the camera...

TEEN SPIRIT (PG-13) 1/2

Here we are now...entertain us!

Two thirds of TEEN SPIRIT work really well.  It contains a winning lead performance as well as stylish and evocative direction by a rookie director.  The remaining third of the film, though, that regrettably doesn't work is its screenplay, which wallows in a lot of tired underdog formulas that we've frankly been exposed to countless times before...

SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

(PG-13)

My "Peter Tingle" is...tingling

The super hero movie world was shaken to near Snap- level proportions back in 2015 when Sony and the Disney owned Marvel Studios hatched out a plan to allow for Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on a reported five film loan (Sony has owned the movie rights to the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko character for years).  This culminated with a first appearance in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR...

YESTERDAY (PG-13)

Still my guitar gently weeps

YESTERDAY is a new musical dramatic fantasy that has one terrific hook: What if you woke up one day and discovered that The Beatles never existed. Now, just let that settle in for a second. Just imagine the musical landscape of the last several decades without the work of the Fab Four.  Their work was not just music, kind of like how STAR WARS was not just a movie.  If erased from history, the ripple effects of The Beatles' influence on multiple generations of musicians would have, in turn, never existed...

HIGH LIFE (R)

To infinity...and beyond!

There have been enough science fiction films that have explored space travel to literally fill a black hole, which leaves most new entries having to work overtime to overcome stale genre lethargy.  HIGH LIVE falls into the aforementioned category, but its genius is in how deceptively it transcends the obligatory accoutrements of these types of space trekking tales, partially because of its masterfully economic scale, but mostly because it's the exact polar opposite of what viewers have come to expect from the genre...

TOY STORY 4 

(PG)

Once again, you got a friend in me...

Pixar has absolutely nothing to prove.  The pioneering animation studio was solely responsible for fundamentally altering the landscape of movies forever with the release of 1995's TOY STORY, which was the very first animated feature film done entirely with computers.  Much like what the original STAR WARS did for visual effects, the John Lasseter directed TOY STORY opened up a whole new portal into how animated films could be conceived and created...

DOMINO (R)

De Palma's way

I fondly recall a time when seeing a Brain De Palma film reached event status levels for me.  The stylish and acclaimed auteur made some of the most memorable films of the 1970s and 1980s in CARRIE, BLOW OUT, SCARFACE, and THE UNTOUCHABLES.  This led to a bit of a career slowdown in the 90s, and for every solid effort like CARLITO'S WAY and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE there were colossal misfires like THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES...

MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL 

(PG-13) 1/2

Can this sequel be neuralized out of existence?

The somewhat more inclusive minded titled MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL is a pretty bland and creatively lackluster sequel that, last I checked, not too many people were clamoring for, especially without the series' lead actors or creative personnel returning.  It's the fourth film in the science fiction comedy franchise...

LATE NIGHT (R) 1/2

And heeeeeeeeere's...Mindy!

LATE NIGHT is an intelligently written, wonderfully acted, and hilariously insightful workplace comedy that feels like a most joyous and welcome antidote to the current summer film season's witless remakes and wrongheaded sequels.  It's not only a riotously funny expose on the behind the scenes mechanizations of a fictitious late night talk show program, but is also a highly topical and relevant tale of how race, gender, and modern feminism figures into a male dominated profession...

THE DEAD DON'T DIE (R)

A mostly dead on arrival horror comedy

THE DEAD DON'T DIE is a new zombie themed effort that felt more like a bizarre and frequently frustrating to endure curiosity piece than it did a fully fledged and realized horror comedy.  The fact that it boasts an impressively assembled and eclectic cast and the idiosyncratic writer/director Jim Jarmusch at the creative helm made my enthusiasm going in exceedingly high...

DARK PHOENIX (PG-13)

Not exactly rising from the series ashes

There's an unintentionally hilarious - and quite meta - line of dialogue uttered during DARK PHOENIX, the twelfth installment in Fox's X-MEN-centric film franchise and the direct sequel to 2016's X-MEN: APOCALYPSE.  During this scene we see former mass human murdering mutant turned at peace with himself communal hippie once again turned hostile Erik "Magneto" Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) getting fed up with frenemy Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his rhetoric...

BOOKSMART (R)

A near grade A high school comedy

BOOKSMART doesn't so much transcend and rise above high school teen comedy formulas as much as it does tap into its already well worn genre playbook, albeit with some nifty and fresh new refinements.  Like countless other examples that have come before it, this film delves into a storyline of a couple of graduating social outcasts desperately trying to attain one last night of debauchery and fun with the popular kids that have previously shunned them...

Posted June 15, 2019

ROCKETMAN (R)

Sing us a song, you're the piano man!

ROCKETMAN is a new music biography about select sections of the life and times of Elton John, the iconic English singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer that has sold over a quarter of a billion records worldwide, making him one of the best selling artists in history.  It comes coasting in on the coattails, so to speak, of last year's Oscar nominated BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, and comparisons between the these two - albeit very different - films is inevitable...

Posted June 15, 2019

GODZILLA: 

KING OF THE MONSTERS

(R) 1/2

Let them fight!

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS - the third film in Legendary Pictures' self anointed  "MonsterVerse" - is pure and unapologetic creature mayhem and city destruction pornography.  It comes off of director Gareth Edwards' underrated cinematic universe starting installment, and this new sequel is a bigger, louder, and most definitely dumber sequel...

Posted June 6, 2019

ALADDIN (PG)

Not really a whole new world

Contrary to what many people think, I don’t despise all Disney remakes of their past animated properties. I thought PETE’S DRAGON, for example, was an absolutely stupendous remake and one of the best family films of its year. And it legitimately improved and expanded upon its antecedent.  But that also wasn’t a remake of a cherished/iconic classic that was adored by both critics and audiences...

Posted June 6, 2019

STARFISH 

(No MPAA Rating) 1/2

A girl, an apocalypse, and a world saving mixtape

STARFISH is an endlessly compelling, ambitious, and audacious cinematic cocktail: Part scavenger hunt mystery, part meditation on grief and mourning, and part avant garde post apocalyptic sci-fi, all thanklessly held together by musician turned first time feature film director A.T. White.  Unlike so many witless and disposable works of movie science fiction that exist primarily for visual effects, mayhem and action, STARFISH is a different and rarer breed of genre effort...

Posted June 6, 2019

BRIGHTBURN  (R)

Faster than a speeding bullet and more kill happy than Jason Voorhees...

One of my favorite comic books growing up was Marvel's WHAT IF, which featured alternate take stories exploring various super heroes in its universe that were  decidedly different from the established continuity.  It just made for juicy reading, and the comic book covers for these issues were hypnotically alluring (one of my favorites involved a Spider-Man arc and featured the title "What if Uncle Ben had Lived?")...

Posted June 6, 2019

JOHN WICK: 

CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM

(R)

He knows gung fu...prepare for war

Third films in an action franchise have absolutely no business being as stupendously satisfying and delivering on all tangible and promised levels as much as JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM.  One thing dawned on me while watching this sequel's unrelenting onslaught of masterfully engineered and executed bedlam: Keanu Reeves is 54-years-old.  Just...just let that settle in for a minute...

Posted May 29, 2019

WHAT MEN WANT 

(R) 1/2

A...better...remake...

than...this?

I'm not technically against gender swapped remakes of movies, regardless of genre.  However, these remakes have to earn their keep and justify their very existence.  The new romantic comedy WHAT MEN WANT - which is a very loose remake of the 2000 Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt starring romcom WHAT WOMEN WANT - doesn't make for a strong case study in regards to said pursuits...

Posted May 29, 2019

POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU

(PG)

Some mysteries aren't worth solving

To quote its full title, POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU isn't a film made for me.  I don't know much about Pokemon.  I'm not a fan of the Pokemon phenomenon.  I don't try to hunt and/or collect Pokemon (either virtually or literally).  And maybe I don't simply get Pokemon.  But I do know that POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU isn't so much a movie as it is a near two hour product placement commercial...

Posted May 20, 2019

APOLLO 11 (PG)

A doc for all mankind

There are very few films these days that legitimately instill in me a childlike sensation of awe and wonder in their sights and make me feel like I've been thoroughly transported out of my cinema chair and into the events transpiring on screen as an active participant.  Todd Douglas Miller's astonishing new documentary, simply titled APOLLO 11, is one of those decidedly rare breeds of filmgoing experiences...

Posted May 20, 2019

DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE

(R)

A stone cold heist thriller

The thought of seeing yet another crooked cops thriller really has very little appeal to me these days, seeing as my time to screen movies is precious, not to mention that the genre itself has been literally done to death over the years.  But writer/director S. Craig Zahler's DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE has somewhat renewed my faith in these types of films, mostly because it favors slow burn intrigue and character dynamics versus action...

Posted May 20, 2019

LONG SHOT (R)

The odd couple road to the White House

I don't typically ask much of most romcoms. I honestly don't.  Even when their plots go down the most predictable of paths all that I simply require out of them is to make me care.  These films must give me two characters that are likeable, relatable, and that I want to see live on happily ever after just before the end credits roll by...

Posted May 15, 2019

EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE

(No MPAA Rating)

Confessions of a serial killer

EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL, AND VILE is an extremely uneven, shockingly misguided, and dull biographical crime thriller.  It’s a portrait of Ted Bundy - one of the most loathsome serial killers of all time - and his relationship with his then girlfriend before the law caught up with him and his heinous crimes.  Sadly, this film is never really sure what it wants to be about...

Posted May 15, 2019

AVENGERS: ENDGAME

(PG-13) 

We're in the fan servicing endgame now, Tony... 

I remember screening the very first IRON MAN film way, way back in 2008 and, for the most part, shrugged off the final end credit scene featuring a surprise cameo by Samuel L. Jackson's S.H.I.E.L.D. head honcho Nick Fury talking to Robert Downey Jr.'s metal clad hero about "the Avengers Initiative."  Contemplating the massive scope of what was promised here, I turned to my friend at the time and whispered into his ear that an AVENGERS film will "never happen"...

Posted May 6, 2019

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE 

(R)

There's a silver lining to this troubled production

After the twisted, genre busting greatness of writer/director David Robert Mitchell's 2014 art house horror thriller IT FOLLOWS - which I proudly placed on my list for the Ten Best Films of that year - I was willing to jump down any rabbit hole he placed in front of me moving forward.  With its joyously and nostalgically synthesized music score, slick direction, and crafty and sly dissection of teen slasher film troupes, IT FOLLOWS ushered Mitchell in as a bono fide talent...

Posted May 6, 2019

MISS BALA  (PG-13)

An AK-47 packing beauty queen 

The new crime thriller MISS BALA is one of those all too frequent and frustrating filmgoing experiences because it contains a wonderfully authentic and textured lead performance that's mostly betrayed from some extremely spotting writing and weak handling of its would-be compelling themes.  The premise itself - if handled improperly - easily inspires chuckles...

Posted May 6 , 2019 

PET SEMATARY (R) 1/2  

This gravesite needs a spell check

I have vague memories of the original 1989 film adaptation of Stephen King's 1983 PET SEMATARY horror novel, which places me, I guess, in a somewhat advantageous place going into its modern remake of the same name without having any baggage.  As to the number of changes and tweaks this Kevin Kolsch and Denis Widmyer directed version makes to the source material and the previous film iteration I cannot say...

Posted April 27, 2019

REPLICAS (R)

Man playing God...the really dumb version

A few weeks ago I appeared on live TV and defended Keanu Reeves for being a better actor than he's often given credit for.  I also went on to explain that when he's given just the right character, film, and director married to his unique skills then he can be a commanding and charismatic screen presence (the recent JOHN WICK films come to mind).  However, I did concede that the Canadian actor has most certainly delivered his fair share of lousy performances and has appeared in many equally mediocre films over the years...

Posted April 27, 2019

HELLBOY (R) 1/2  

Aw crap

Back in 2004 writer/director Guillermo del Toro introduced movie audiences to the bizarre comic book universe of HELLBOY, which in turn was born in comic book form thanks to Mike Mignola.  I enjoyed that film as a preposterously imaginative fantasy that was unafraid to go against the grain of obligatory genre fare of the era.  That, and del Toro painted the screen with luscious art direction and then cutting edge visual effects...

Posted April 25, 2019

MISSING LINK (PG) 1/2  

Where the not so wild things are

The unendingly delightful and beautifully rendered MISSING LINK is the latest stop motion animated effort from Laika, the Oregon based studio that previously made one of the best films of its kind in 2016's KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (which, incidentally, made my list of the Ten Best Films of its year).  Their follow-up effort could not be anymore different in MISSING LINK...

Posted April 25, 2019

SHAZAM!  

(PG-13) 1/2

HOLY MOLEY!!!

How is it even possible that a comic book character that premiered to readers just a year after Superman in 1939, sold more comic books during the 1940s than the Man of Steel, and has been a pretty consistently popular entity for several decades has never had a lavish big screen live action film all to his own?...

Posted April 16, 2019

A DOG'S WAY HOME

(PG) 1/2

A dog with fleas family drama

Full disclosure: I'm more of a cat man.  Sorry, canine lovers.  However, I don't hate dogs.  I like dogs too.  But I hate dumb movies about dogs.  Actually, I hate dumb movies about any type of animal.  I just wanted to throw that all out there before I officially review A DOG'S WAY HOME, just so I don't, as I move forward, come off as some smug feline lover.  Just to be clear, there have been many movies involving talking animals - in one form or another - that I've cherished...

Posted April 16, 2019

DUMBO 

(PG)

Another Disney remake that rarely soars

It's utterly ironic that we can essentially thank Tim Burton for the recent batch of Disney's live action adaptations of their own cherished animated classics. The studio's recent and highly dubious business practice as of late really began with Burton's own large scale and lavish live action iteration of their own ALICE IN WONDERLAND...

Posted April 8, 2019

THE HIGHWAYMEN

(No MPAA Rating)

On the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde

When cinephiles think of the Depression era criminal ways of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker it's pretty easy to deduce that Arthur Penn's iconic Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway starring 1960's film probably comes immediately to their minds.  That fifty-plus year old classic deserves its legendary status in the industry, most specifically for how incomparably important it was for the then New Hollywood culture...

Posted April 8, 2019