|
|
WELCOME
TO MARWEN
(PG-13)
 1/2
He
gets by with a little help from his little
friends
Robert
Zemeckis'
WELCOME TO MARWEN is a new fact based drama that tells the endlessly
strange, yet endearing story of artist and photographer Mark Hogancamp,
who in April of 2000 was viciously attacked outside of a bar by five men,
nearly being beaten to death in the process.
He drunkenly admitted to them that he had a penchant for wearing
women's shoes, which precipitated their hate crime attack.
After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Hogancamp
was discharged and left a mentally and physically broken man...
Posted
January 12, 2019
|
|
|
HOLMES
& WATSON
(PG-13)
1/2
A
mysteriously unfunny spoof
On a superficial
level, HOLMES & WATSON is a movie.
No,
seriously...it is. It contains a
feature length running time, it has a massive studio and fairly sizeable
budget behind it, it stars two bankable and proven comedic actors, and it
has been
aggressively marketed to the eager moviegoing masses.
But HOLMES &
WATSON is barely a movie.
It most assuredly isn't a comedy either, seeing as it contains
virtually no laughs.
And it's not - despite a very specific title - a new Sherlock
Holmes mystery worth investing in...
Posted
January 12, 2019
|
|
|
BUMBLEBEE
(PG-13)
 1/2
Almost
more than meets the eye
BUMBLEBEE is the
very best possible TRANSFORMERS live
action movie that I've ever seen.
Now, considering
that I've hated the five (dear Lord in Heaven...five) previous
Michael Bay helmed franchise installments and that every single one placed
high on my lists of ten worst films of their respective year...that may not be saying a
whole hell of a lot.
Okay, sarcasm
aside, let me get serious for a bit and start on a positive here...
Posted
January 12, 2019
|
|
|
VICE
(R)
The
most unlikely powerful VP in American history
In 2015
writer/director Adam McKay was a rather unlikely Oscar winner for his work
on THE
BIG SHORT, which was an
absurd satirical take on the 2008 Financial Crisis and the devastating
impact it had on America.
The central theme of that film was how people in places of
limitless wealth and power nearly destroyed the country...out of pure
greed to attain more wealth and power...and at the expense of the poor.
It was both as hysterical as it was shocking...
Posted
January 12, 2019
|
|
|
CAN
YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
(R)
1/2
Dear
Melissa: All is forgiven
I've spent the
better part of the last decade coming down hard on Melissa McCarthy, an
extremely talented actress that has done her career absolutely no favors
by appearing in one witless and puerile comedy after another, like THE
BOSS, TAMMY, IDENTITY
THIEF , and LIFE OF THE PARTY. Most of my reviews of those
films have one commonality in wishing that she strayed as far away from
the stale and overused conventions of these films and the characters that
she played so she can instead embark on something audaciously fresh and
novel...
Posted
January 12, 2019
|
|
|
AQUAMAN
(PG-13)
1/2
Somewhere...beyond
the sea...
Let's face facts: Aquaman has never been considered as - for lack of a better word - cool
as his other DC Comics super heroes like Batman and Superman. The notion of an
orange and green costumed man that can breath underwater and talk to
various aquatic life makes this hero a difficult nut to crack on the
silver screen while not making him the butt of easy jokes.
Considering the somewhat shaky ground that the DC Extended Universe
has been on lately...
Posted
January 4, 2019
|
|
|
MARY
POPPINS RETURNS
(PG)
A
spoonful of sugar makes the sequel go down
I asked myself
two questions as I left my screening of MARY POPPINS RETURNS:
1.
Outside of obvious financial motive for the studio, was there any
need for Disney to make a sequel to the cherished original from over 50
years ago? Short answer?
Nope.
2. Is MARY
POPPINS RETURNS an entertaining sequel worthy of big screen consumption?
Short answer:
Yup...
Posted
January 4, 2019
|
|
|
SPIDER-MAN:
INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
(PG)
They
all do whatever multiple spiders can
Okay, so shove
these facts up your mind, true believers: SPIDER-MAN: INTO
THE SPIDER-VERSE is, believe it or not, the very first feature length
animated film about the world's most famous wall-crawler.
It's also the seventh SPIDER-MAN film since 2000, including Sam
Raimi's sometimes masterful and sometimes mediocre trilogy, Marc Webb's
equally mixed bag two pack of AMAZING
SPIDER-MAN franchise reboots, and, yes, the MCU reboot of the
reboot in last year's SPIDER-MAN:
HOMECOMING...
Posted
December 26, 2018
|
|
|
MORTAL
ENGINES (PG-13)
1/2
A
mortally wounded franchise opener
MORTAL ENGINES is
an absolutely stunning triumph of visual effects, art direction, and
production design. It's also, rather
unfortunately, an abysmal failure on a basic character and story front. Despite an
ambitiously bonkers premise, I simply didn't care about anyone or anything
in this post apocalyptic sci-fi film.
I think the overall intent when it comes to cinematic world
building is for a film to legitimately feel like it's transporting you to
another time and place and makes, in turn, its otherworldly universe seem
tangible and real...
Posted
December 26, 2018
|
|
|
THE
MULE (R)
1/2
A
rare Eastwoodian starring vehicle lacking in
substance
I find myself marveling
at Clint Eastwood's prolific nature as a director over the last decade -
at an extremely ripe 88-years-old - more so than I do at the overall
quality of said films during that period. He's made six
films since 2010, which is pretty remarkable in itself when one considers
that the former Man With No Name has more than reached retirement home
age. I find his efforts to
have been a mixed bag...
Posted
December 26, 2018
|
|
|
BOY
ERASED (R)
1/2
Trying
to cure what doesn't need curing
BOY ERASED is
based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by Garrard Conley, who is the
only child of a Baptist pastor that, when he was attending college at
19-years-old, was outed as homosexual to his deeply religious parents.
Being absolutely petrified with the notion of being openly gay
within his fundamentalist family, Garrard was given a choice by his father...
Posted
December
19, 2018
|
|
|
CRAZY
RICH ASIANS
(PG-13)
1/2
A
crazy conventional romcom with historically
significant underpinnings
Something
dawned on me just after I finished screening
CRAZY RICH ASIANS.
This
new romcom is paradoxically a groundbreaking and
important film in the annals of Hollywood
history...that also happens to be just as
achingly conventional and clichéd as just about
any other dime-a-dozen romcom out there that
preceded it. Now,
hear me out.
..
Posted
December
19, 2018
|
|
|
THE
FRONT RUNNER (R)
1/2
A
flawed political drama with its Hart in the
right place
Politicians
having their careers tainted by scandals involving adulterous affairs
hardly seems so shocking these days.
In some respects, their professional lives are hardly affected at
all. President Bill Clinton
managed to finish two terms as the Commander-in-Chief during the 90s after
a much publicized affair, and the current President managed to even get
elected after being caught red handed in an embarrassing audio recording
condoning sexual assault...
Posted
December
11, 2018
|
|
|
BLINDSPOTTING
(R)
An
urban dramedy with very few creative blind spots
BLINDSPOTTING is
the second film from 2018 alongside Boots Riley's SORRY
TO BOTHER YOU that is set in Oakland, California and contains
themes of race relations, gentrification, and how the identities of
communities are all but being destroyed by corporate interests that are
only in it for themselves and to make a quick buck...
Posted
December
11, 2018
|
|
|
GREEN
BOOK (PG-13)
1/2
An
odd couple of a different color
I
can only begin to imagine the pitch meeting for
GREEN BOOK: "It's
like a reverse engineered DRIVING MISS DAISY
meets THE ODD COUPLE...and it'll be a funny, yet
sobering take on race relations in
segregationist America in the early 60s...and
it'll be directed by one half of the team that
made DUMB AND DUMBER, KINGPIN, and THERE'S
SOMETHING ABOUT MARY..."
Posted
December
2, 2018
|
|
|
CREED
II (PG-13)
"I
must break you...again!"
At the risk of
mixing sports metaphors, 2015's CREED was a
real cinematic curveball thrown at audiences, especially to fans of the
ROCKY series in general. The
Ryan Coogler directed soft reboot/sequel to the iconic Sylvester Stallone
pugilist franchise was far greater than it had any business of being, and
it imbued a renewed lease on life for a series that, to be fair, went out
on a high note with 2006's ROCKY BALBOA,
which in turn came out after a series of so-so to mediocre sequels over
the last few decades...
Posted
December
2, 2018
|
|
|
FANTASTIC
BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (PG-13)
A
prequel/sequel that needs a spell of
enchantment
To quote its full
tongue twisting title, FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD is a
sequel that seems to have this annoying insistence on pushing me away at an
uncomfortable distance instead of luring me in to its expanded upon
cinematic universe. It's the tenth
overall film set in the wizard heavy mythological world of HARRY POTTER
and the direct follow-up to 2016's FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM...
Posted
December
2, 2018
|
|
|
WIDOWS
(R)
Never
send in a man to do a woman's job
Steve
McQueen is a filmmaker that seems positively unafraid of subject matter or
genre challenge, having seriously wowed me with such diverse film
offerings such as 2008's HUNGER (about the
1981 Irish hunger prison strike), 2011's SHAME
(about a man dealing with a debilitating sex addiction) and 2013's 12
YEARS A SLAVE (a historical period drama about a New York African
American that was kidnapped into slavery in the mid 1850s). After
a far too long absence the British director has returned to the silver
screen...
Posted
December
2, 2018
|
|
|
THE
GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB
(R)
1/2
A
tangled web of espionage intrigue
Considering our
current Me Too movement era, a cinematic return to THE GIRL WITH THE
DRAGON TATTOO series would seem positively fitting. The franchise was
born out of author Stieg Larsson's best selling literary works, which
introduced the world to its ferociously empowered female hacker heroine
Lisbeth Salander...
Posted
November
26, 2018
|
|
|
OVERLORD
(R)
1/2
Inglourious
Nazi zombie hunting basterds
OVERLORD is like
an EC Comics/Weird Science tale come lovingly to life.
Its plot concerns a bunch of American soldiers that are dropped in
behind enemy lines before D-day and make some ghastly discoveries of Nazi
scientific experiments that have re-animated dead soldiers, with the end
result resembling what's essentially zombies. In many respects,
OVERLORD is kind of a nice companion piece to, say, Quentin Tarantino's
historically sketchy INGLOURIOUS
BASTERDS...
Posted
November
20, 2018
|
|
|
BOHEMIAN
RHAPSODY
(PG-13)
Is
this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Freddie Mercury
came an awfully long way in his relative short life from his time as a
college student that worked as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport in the
early 70s. Of course, I'm
referring to the legendary frontman of the British rock group QUEEN, whose
music was responsible for nearly a quarter of billion records being sold,
which cemented their status as one of the best selling artists and
greatest bands of all time...
Posted
November
20, 2018
|
|
|
THE
OLD MAN AND THE GUN
(R)
1/2
The
Sundance Kid's swan song
I remember the
very first time I saw Robert Redford in a film. There was a
mischievous look in his eyes that was accompanied by a disarming smile.
He gave the impression that he was winking at the camera and, in turn,
audience without actually doing so. I sat back and fully realized what star power
meant in this instance, and throughout my life watching Redford's movies
I'm constantly reminded of his presence as a screen performer...
Posted
November
20, 2018
|
|
|
HUNTER
KILLER (R)
1/2
Hunter
Killer! Qu'est-ce
que c'est!
All while
watching the new political action thriller HUNTER KILLER I was chiefly
reminded that submarines aren't inherently very interesting on a visual
level. With their simplistic
shape and relatively slow pace across the screen, there's simply not much
dynamism on display, which leaves it up to the director and cast to
make what happens inside of the vessel all the more engaging and
appealing...
Posted
November
10, 2018
|
|
|
SORRY
TO BOTHER YOU
(R)
This
satire can have more than a minute of your time
The new absurdist
black comedy SORRY TO BOTHER YOU is one of the strangest films that I've
ever seen. It's a work that -
to its credit - defies basic genre classification.
It's part social/cultural satire, part sci-fi parable, part broad
workplace comedy, and part commentary piece about race, class, and
capitalism run amok. The film
marks the directorial debut of Boots Riley, the Bay area rapper turned
filmmaker, and his first film positively brims with audacious and bizarre
originality...
Posted
November
10, 2018
|
|
|
HALLOWEEN
(R)
1/2
Same
old genre tricks, not enough new treats
It's impossible
to understate the relative importance that John Carpenter's 1978 horror
thriller HALLOWEEN had on its genre and on the larger movie industry as a
whole.
He all but single handedly invented the mad killer "slasher"
horror genre all on his own and, for better or worse, went on to inspire
an unending number of copycat efforts throughout the 1980s...
Posted
November
3, 2018
|
|
|
HOTEL
ARTEMIS
(R)
1/2
Almost
worth checking in
HOTEL
ARTEMIS belongs on a list of films that I like to call PWP efforts: ones
that have a great premise without payoff.
It's a
new cyberpunk futuristic sci-fi thriller from writer/director Drew Pearce
(making his feature filmmaking debut), who has devised a mostly unique
concept for his dystopian film, which also benefits from a very strong
ensemble cast, a swift and assured momentum, and a low-rent vibe and feel
that somehow doesn't feel like disposable B-grade junk food...
Posted
November
3, 2018
|
|
|
FIRST
MAN
(PG-13)
For
all mankind
FIRST MAN -
Damien Chazelle's first film since winning the Oscar for Best Director for
2016's LA LA LAND - tells the story of
the build-up to the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 20, 1969, during which
time Neil Armstrong famously became the first man to ever step foot on it. His Herculean
feat not only was a momentous moment for all of mankind, but also
marked the end of the Cold War inspired space race between the US and
Russia...
Posted
October
27, 2018
|
|
|
BAD
TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE
(R)
Good
pulp fiction, but not quite "Royale with
Cheese" good
It's
amazing to consider that nearly twenty five years after its release that
generation after generation of filmmaker are repeatedly still trying to
recapture Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION
lighting in a bottle style. Directors
have endeavored - with intermittent levels of success over the years - to marry
Tarantino's brand of ultra violence, swiftly assured and punchy dialogue
exchanges, lurid crime elements, and likeably amoral crooks...
Posted
October
27, 2018
|
|
|
VENOM
(PG-13)
1/2
"I'm
Spider-Man's reckoning!"
The character of
Venom - first introduced nearly thirty years ago to the pages of Marvel Comics' Amazing
Spider-Man #300 - has fully emerged over that period as not
only one of the web crawler's most famous and nightmarish of villains, but
also as an extremely popular fan favorite among comic readers.
This, rather predictably, led to an awfully hasty and not fully
fleshed out appearance as one of the three chief antagonists in Sam
Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 3...
Posted
October
21, 2018
|
|
|
A
STAR IS BORN (R)
An
invigorating new lease on an old Hollywood story
I personally find
it so achingly difficult to screen every new remake that sees the
cinematic light of day as of late.
Unless you have something fresh and revitalizing to bring to the
table while maintaining some semblance of faithfulness to the original (my
litmus test for good remakes), then what's the point? And A STAR IS
BORN has certainly been made and remade far more times than I sometimes
can keep track of...
Posted
October
21, 2018
|
|
|
LEAVE
NO TRACE (R)
Into
the wild
Writer/director
Debra Granik's LEAVE NO TRACE is one of the more quietly understated, but
ultimately powerful character dramas that has come out this year, mostly
due to her dedicated observational eye as a filmmaker, a finely
attuned cast, and a compelling thematic undercurrent about the nature of
survival and how parents cope with rearing their children without any
conveniences of a modern technological society...
Posted
October
21, 2018
|
|
|
LIFE
ITSELF (R) 1/2
A
box of chocolates drama
The new drama
LIFE ITSELF - not to be at all confused with the documentary of the same name about the
life and times of late film critic Roger Ebert - is a
multi-generational portrait of people that seem inexplicably drawn
together via some twisted form of fate. It's from
writer/director Dan Fogelman, perhaps best known for creating the breakout
TV series THIS IS US as well has having penned screenplays for films like
CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE and CARS...
Posted
October
11, 2018
|
|
|
GOTTI
(R) 1/2
Badfellas
GOTTI is the
BATTLEFIELD EARTH of fact based mob dramas. It simply has no
business being as categorically awful as it is. The film is, of
course, based on the life of notorious Italian American New York residing John
Gotti, who became one of the most powerful and ruthless mob
bosses in the Big Apple's history...
Posted
October
11, 2018
|
|
|
THE
PREDATOR (R) 1/2
"Black!
You son of a bitch!"
THE
PREDATOR is the fourth film in the science fiction series,
coming after the original 1987 John McTiernan directed/Arnold Schwarzenegger
starring classic, the not bad/not good 1990 sequel, and the surprisingly
well oiled 2010 sequel (not including,
of course, some terrible ALIEN VS.
PREDATOR spin-off efforts). Considering
that THE PREDATOR (emphasis on THE to help segregate it apart
from the introductory installment) has writer/director Shane Black at the
helm should equal instant buzz...
Posted
October
2, 2018
|
|
|
FAHRENHEIT
11/9 (R)
We're
on a road to nowhere
According
to director Michael Moore, America and its political party system is
royally screwed. Early on in
his latest documentary FAHRENHEIT 11/9 he plainly asks viewers one
simple and blunt question about the current state of affairs in his home
country: "How the
fuck did this all happen?"
How, indeed.
Moore has made a
career of out making documentaries the push buttons on multiple
social/cultural/political ills...
Posted
October
2, 2018
|
|
|
MANDY
(R) 1/2
A
surreal Cage-ian Death Wish
At
the risk of sounding pretentious, MANDY is a movie that isn't designed to
be passively watched, but rather actively experienced. I can't think of any other way to relay how to view this
action/horror film, which feels like a 1980s Heavy Metal album come to
nightmarish life crossed morphed with an intense fever dream.
It's also an unrelentingly gory revenge thriller, but even that
basic descriptor doesn't do it much justice...
.
Posted
October
2, 2018
|
|
|
ALPHA
(PG-13) 1/2
A
stone age boy and his dog
I
engage in no hyperbole whatsoever in saying that there has never been a
movie quite like ALPHA about man's relationship with man's best friend. Yes,
there are innumerable examples of canine centric dramas that have
delicately and poignantly relayed how owning a pet can be a most special
and life changing gift, but ALPHA has much vaster ambitions than that....
Posted
Posted
October
2, 2018
|
|
|
WHITE
BOY RICK
(R)
Diaries
of a teenage informant
WHITE BOY RICK
is a new fact based period crime drama that's painted in extremely
familiar gangster genre formulas (down on his luck hoodlum rises above his
station in life to become a major criminal player) and a somewhat rushed
tone that could have perhaps benefited from a mini-series or long form
documentary format. Yet, it's
potently and authentically acted throughout and contains a hook that's
most certainly fresh and worthy of cinematic exploration...
.
Posted
September
21, 2018
|
|
|
PEPPERMINT
(R) 1/2
A
minty revenge thriller with a bad aftertaste
The
ridiculously titled PEPPERMINT - taken from, I kid you not, an ice cream
flavor - is the fourth revenge porn action thriller that I've seen in 2018
alone, proving that the lurid genre is all the current rage. It's also the
second one I've seen featuring a female protagonist, coming on the heels
of Coralie Fargeat's evocatively stylish REVENGE..
.
Posted
September
21, 2018
|
|
|
HEREDITARY
(R) 1/2
Be
careful what you pass on
HEREDITARY
is a new supernatural horror thriller that's a visceral masterpiece in
terms of generating nail biting tension, haunting atmosphere, and a
chillingly eerie vibe of intrigue throughout.
It contains moments of profoundly unsettling imagery that could
aptly be described as Kubrickian. Tonally and aesthetically, writer/director Ari Aster's
feature film debut is astonishingly well crafted,
and the manner that he maintains - throughout most of the film's running
time - a bona fide nerve wracking tone is to his rookie filmmaking
credit...
Posted
September
21, 2018
|
|
|
BLACKkKLANSMAN
(R)
Going
undercover...the hard way
Writer/director
Spike Lee has made a career out of making racially charged dramas that
push all kinds of buttons with his unique brand of in-your-face bluntness.
BLACKkKLANSMAN boldly and proudly continues this trend for the
acclaimed filmmaker, which finds inspiration in a highly bizarre, yet
absolutely real story that's set forty years ago, but somehow manages to
hold up a mirror to our current divisive times...
Posted
September
11, 2018
|
|
|
THE
HAPPYTIME MURDERS
(R) 1/2
A
happy time at the movies...it ain't
In
my 43 years on the planet I've never required - nor have ever asked - for
any Muppet character to curse up a storm in order to be appealing and
funny in a movie. Not. Once. Part of what
made, for example, the late Jim Henson's iconic Muppet characters so
endlessly endearing was that they were all, in their own respective and
unique ways, as charming as any of the human characters that surrounded
them...
Posted
September
11, 2018
|
|
|
UPGRADE
(R)
"Gentleman:
we can rebuild him...we have the
technology..."
The
futuristic science fiction thriller UPGRADE is made up of a considerable
number of regurgitated thematic parts from countless other past efforts in
the genre in terms of man's symbiotic, but strained relationship with
machines and AI technology. It
also contains obligatory elements of the revenge thriller thrown in for
good measure that we're all seen before...
Posted
September
11, 2018
|
|
|
SUMMER
OF '84
(R)
Stranger
things are afoot in small town Oregon
The
nostalgically titled SUMMER OF '84 conjures up memories for me of walking
to the local video store during my teen years and cruising through the
B-grade horror section and seeing a lot of box art that echoes this film's
poster. And I mean that
as a sincere compliment. This
Canadian/American production concerns a group of four suburban teens that
are amateur sleuths and believe - in their heart of hearts - that one of
their kindly neighbors is indeed a vile serial killer of children...
Posted
September
11, 2018
|
|
|
MILE
22
(R) 1/2
ESCORT
MISSION: THE MOVIE
The new espionage
action thriller MILE 22 is one of the most frustratingly over-directed and
hyperactively edited films that I've seen this year.
It's almost as if director Peter Berg was high on massive
quantities of speed while making it, seeing as the resulting film is so
headache inducing and eye straining that cinemas should be handing out
Aspirins to patrons after they exit their screenings of it...
Posted
August
30, 2018
|
|
|
THE
MEG
(PG-13)
Somewhere...beyond
the...deep blue sea
THE MEG takes its
name from the "Megaldon," a 75 foot long prehistoric shark the size of a whale.
It's an action thriller about of group of intrepid and courageous
scientists that take on this aquatic menace to ensure that it doesn't lay
waste to the rest of humanity that likes to reside on beachfront property.
It's also based, so I've been told by many, on the 1997 novel of the
same name by Steve Alten, and as to whether or not it's a faithful
appropriation of the source material I couldn't say...
Posted
August
30, 2018
|
|
|
EIGHTH
GRADE (R)
Growing
pains
There have
seen
an awful lot of movies about high school life, but so very few that have
dealt with the awkward and sometimes anxiety plagued transition that kids
make while moving from elementary to high school, which is what makes
writer/director Bo Burnham's very specifically titled EIGHTH GRADE so
ultimately invigorating for an extremely over packed genre...
Posted
August
30, 2018
|
|
|
LIFE
OF THE PARTY (PG-13)
BACK
TO SCHOOL...redux
I'm literally
going to start my review of the new Melissa McCarthy led college comedy
LIFE OF THE PARTY in the exact same manner as I did when I opened my
review of her last comedy THE BOSS: I don’t hate
Melissa McCarthy.
I really don’t, contrary to what many of you may think.
She’s talented.
That much is clear...
Posted
August
30, 2018
|
|
|
CHRISTOPHER
ROBIN
(PG)
A
bear named Winnie
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
is the kind of sweet and good natured family film that are simply not made
in abundance anymore. Dripping
with good natured and infectious charm, the latest live action Disney
effort (seeking inspiration from one of their classic and iconic animated
films) reminds viewers of the enjoyable virtues of simply told fables, and
ones done without any semblance of annoying cynicism or forced edge...
Posted
August
17, 2018
|
|
|
THREE
IDENTICAL STRANGERS
(PG-13) 1/2
You
couldn't possibly make this up
I want you all
to tap into the recesses of your imaginations to help me set up the new
documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS. Close your eyes: Imagine, if you
would, that you're a bright and eager minded teenager about to attend your
very first day of college. As a brand new student for the academic year you enter into
post-secondary studies knowing...that you know nobody at this school...
Posted
August
17, 2018
|
|
|
THE
RIDER (R)
A
western drama from a different prerogative
I've
seen so many countless permutations of the western genre over the years
that I've frankly lost count, but THE RIDER is in a whole other ultra rare
breed altogether. Just how ultra rare, you may ask?
It's a genre
busting effort featuring indigenous cowboys from reservations starring
non-actors playing semi-fictionalized versions of themselves who are all
directed by a female Chinese filmmaker...
Posted
August
17, 2018
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MISSION:
IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT
(PG-13)
An
impossibly great sequel
This really, really
shouldn't be happening. Every fiber of my
film critic being is telling me otherwise, but this fifth MISSION:
IMPOSSIBLE sequel - defying all odds and past cinematic precedents - has
triumphantly emerged as arguably the very best entry in twenty-plus year
old espionage series, something that I've been finding myself saying
rather inexplicably and somewhat impossibly when every new sequel hits
theaters...
Posted
August
8, 2018
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THE
EQUALIZER 2 (R)
The
sequalizer
THE EQUALIZER 2
has a sensationally effective opening sequence.
During it we are re-introduced to ex-CIA agent turned big box store
employee turned revenge dispensing machine Robert McCall (Denzel
Washington) disguised as a devout Muslim traveling through Turkey via high
speed train. Don't
ask...just hear me out...
Posted
August
8, 2018
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I
FEEL PRETTY (R) 1/2
I
feel cheated
I FEEL PRETTY is
a new comedy with awfully sweet and honorable intentions in terms of its
core message and themes, but the manner with which it executes them is
kind of maddeningly sloppy and counterproductive. Without question,
this latest Amy Schumer starring vehicle - via its somewhat high concept
narrative - advocates a message of believing in oneself and the overall
importance of having inner self confidence...
Posted
August
8, 2018
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ANT-MAN
AND THE WASP
(PG-13) 1/2
Larger
scaled sequel nets tiny returns
Considering the
galactic solemnity and unfathomably dire stakes at the climax of the very
recently released AVENGERS:
INFINITY WAR, one could easily argue that a return to the frivolous merriment of the ANT-MAN films would feel like relative comfort
food right about now...
Posted
July
29, 2018
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THE
FIRST PURGE (R) 1/2
A
prequel cleansing
I will never
feel bad - nor will I ever apologize - for enjoying a majority of THE
PURGE movies. No one should
ever confuse them with high art. They're
sleazy B-grade trash, but they're - in reasonable dosages - enjoyable and
competently made trash. Whereas
the first film in writer/director James DeMonaco's dystopian sci-fi horror
thriller series sort of stumbled out of the blocks as a semi-serious
social/political satire crossed morphed with a home invasion thriller...
Posted
July
29, 2018
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SKYSCRAPER
(PG-13)
Dying
hard in a towering inferno
I think one of
the essential problems with Dwayne Johnson's recent film career is that
he's favoring an aggressive paycheck grabbing quantity of films to quality of films
approach to selecting his projects. There's a reason
The Rock is the highest paid actor working in contemporary movies: It has
everything to do with the fact that he's taking just about any job given
to him...
Posted
July
29, 2018
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WON'T
YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
(PG-13)
It's
a beautiful day in the cinema...
There's
a moment in the Morgan Neville's brilliant documentary WON'T YOU BE
MY NEIGHBOR? that brought me as close to tears as any other recent movie.
A depressed young
boy is relaying to Fred Rogers how his cat recently died.
Speaking to the child directly and sincerely through a feline
puppet, Rogers displays enormous empathy while consoling the grieving lad.
Within no time, the downtrodden boy eventually smiles...
Posted
July
16,
2018
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FIRST
REFORMED (R)
Lost
enlightenment
Paul
Schrader's FIRST REFORMED is a faith-in-crisis drama about a man of the
cloth that's being thrust down a dark chasm of complete emotional and
spiritual breakdown. Calling
this a religious movie almost doesn't do it any justice,
seeing as Schrader has decidedly more up his sleeve than exploring his
character's belief in the almighty...
Posted
July
16,
2018
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