
|
A
HAUNTING IN VENICE
(PG-13)
1/2
Call
off the police...Hercule Poirot is on the case!
"After
death comes…nothing." So says
Kenneth Branagh's heavily mustached and even
more heavily Belgian-accented detective Hercule
Poirot during one particularly tense exchange
with a medium in A HAUNTING IN VENICE, the third
in the actor/director's trilogy of films based
on Agatha Christie's celebrated whodunit
murder/mystery novels. "I
don't believe in psychics," he later
bemoans...
Posted
September 23, 2023
|

|
THE
LITTLE MERMAID (PG)
I
don't want to be a part of this world
Disney
has come under considerable fire - and very
rightfully so - for their cash-grabbing and
creatively lazy attempts to milk their iconic
animated film catalogue and remake them into
live action iterations. It has been a
pretty never-ending cycle over the last few
years, and one that I find cynical and
desperate. That's not to say that I
haven't liked some of these remakes (I enjoyed
Kenneth Branagh's opulent CINDERELLA redo and
thought that David Lowery's PETE'S DRAGON
significantly improved upon the original)...
Posted
September 23, 2023
|

|
THE
ADULTS (R)
1/2
It's
arrested development...
I can certainly see what Dustin Guy
Defa's THE ADULTS was trying to do and say, but what I was left wondering
when I finished my screening was whether or not the overall film
worked on at its intended levels. Some of the core ideas at play here are young
adults struggling to find ways to be open and honest in their
communication with one another within a fragile family unit, so they
employ unique outlets to do so. On some levels, THE ADULTS is a
fairly sharp portrait of family dysfunction...
Posted
September 23, 2023
|

|
THE
EQUALIZER 3 (R)
1/2
Threequelized
Midway
through THE EQUALIZER 3 - the third and
reportedly last film in this action thriller
series based loosely on the 1980s TV series of
the same name - we witness ex-CIA agent and
assassin Robert McCall (Denzel Washington)
having a confrontation with some Italian
mobsters that are terrorizing patrons in
restaurant. Never
mind the hows and the whys, just know that
McCall is confronting mafia scum....
Posted
September 14, 2023
|

|
NO
HARD FEELINGS (R)
A
different kind of hunger games
There's a moment during the new comedy NO HARD FEELINGS that made me both gasp in shock and
uncontrollably laugh. It involves star Jennifer Lawrence in what would
easily be considered a thanklessly committed performance. Her
character is skinny dipping in a nearby lake with her much younger date
and soon discovers that some rowdy troublemaking teens start mocking them
while confiscating their clothes...
Posted
September 14, 2023
|

|
GRAN
TURISMO (PG-13)
This
ain't no game
GRAN
TURISMO traverses down some of the most overused
underdog sports movie clichés that are out
there. There's
the young, misunderstood, but gifted outcast
that struggles to gain acceptance, even within
his own family unit. There's the bitter
and older mentor coach figure that begrudgingly
takes in this protégée. There's the
hot-headed, thoroughly talented, and potentially
unstoppable opponent that the underdog must
conquer...
Posted
September 5, 2023
|

|
YOU
HURT MY FEELINGS
(R)
Couples
therapy...the hard way
Writer/director
Nicole Holofcener's YOU HURT MY FEELINGS centers
on one fundamental conundrum that just about any
married person can relate to: Is it okay to
lie to your spouse if it means sparing their
feelings? We're
not talking a gross relationship ending lie,
like one involving infidelity, for example. We're
talking about the seemingly innocuous little
white lies that are told to our significant
others in order to spare them any personal
embarrassment or sense of failure...
Posted
September
5, 2023
|

|
BLUE
BEETLE (PG-13)
A
super hero bug's life
Just
before I screened BLUE BEETLE - the 14th installment
(well...maybe...more in a bit) of the DC
Extended Universe, I checked out Netflix's HEART
OF STONE. My
main issue with that Gal Gadot spy thriller
vehicle was that it seemed like it was lazily
pilfering from the genre playbook and offered up
a greatest hits package of well worn and
overused troupes.
I
felt the exact same way as I exited BLUE BEETLE.
Here's a super hero origin film that
feels like so many countless others that we have
received over the years...
Posted
August
23, 2023
|

|
HEART
OF STONE
(PG-13)
|
|
A
less than rock solid MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE clone
NETFLIX's
HEART OF STONE is the kind of film that feels
like it was hastily cobbled together by writers
that simply stapled dozens upon dozens of genre
clichés on the wall and then proceeded to
randomly throw darts at them to see what they
could include. It's clear that the makers
here were attempting to do two things...
Posted
August
23, 2023
|

|
THE
LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (R) 1/2
A
creature feature with a different kind of bite
I
perhaps don't have enough fingers and toes to
count the number of films featuring Dracula that
have come out in my lifetime. Bram
Stoker's 19th Century literary creation has seen
so many cinematic permutations that it leaves
each new one coming out in an unenviable
position to either up the ante or find a new
fresh prerogative for the material. We
received a heavily comedic (and novel) take
earlier this year in RENFIELD (which showcased
the iconic bloodsucker, but was told from his
minion's perspective)...
Posted
August
23, 2023
|

|
TEENAGE
MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM (PG) 1/2
They're
the world's most fearsome fighting team
The
new Nickelodeon produced computer animated film
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM is
one of the late summer film season's most
refreshing surprises. It also just might
be the best TMNT movie ever made. That
might not entirely be saying much, seeing as
this 1980s Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird comic
book creation (that later spawned a massive
toyline and animated series) has not had the
most consistent of runs on the silver screen...
Posted
August
17, 2023
|

|
TRANSFORMERS:
RISE OF THE BEASTS (PG-13) 1/2
Fall
of the franchise
I
found myself asking way, way too many
questions during my patience testing screening
of TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS. Let
me give you some examples. There's
an Autobot named Stratosphere that comes in the
form of a hopelessly broken down World War II
cargo plane. Based on the world building
provided by the last TRANSFORMERS outing (2018's
not great, but step in the right direction
BUMBLEBEE), this extraterrestrial and
shape-shifting machine intelligence has been on
Earth for less than a decade...
Posted
August
17, 2023
|

|
THE
BEANIE BUBBLE
(R)
|
 |
A
crazy story of one of the craziest of crazes
There
is something about the 2023 film year that has
featured a shocking number of period-specific
films that have been about consumer products, in
one form or another. The best of the bunch
would easily be Ben Affleck's AIR, which dealt
with a then struggling Nike desperately trying
to nab one of the biggest rookie clients of all
time and build a shoe brand around him. The
second best was the recently released
BLACKBERRY, which honed in on the spectacular
rise and dreadful fall of an early pioneer of
smart phone tech...
Posted
August 17, 2023
|

|
BARBIE
(PG-13) 1/2
C'mon
Robbie, let's go party!
BARBIE
is a real cinematic curveball that's thrown at
audiences. Going
into it, I was fully expecting yet another
cynical-minded attempt of brand extension to the
silver screen to peddle toys to the masses.
And the Barbie line from Mattel is, no
doubt about it, an iconic fashion doll and toy
empire unlike just about any other that emerged
in the 20th Century, meaning that it would only
be a matter of time before someone attempted a
live action film iteration of it. What's
ultimately astounding about director Greta
Gerwig's BABRIE is the manner it defies nearly
all expectations...
Posted
August
5, 2023
|

|
OPPENHEIMER
(R)
American
Prometheus
Very
few films use close-ups as powerfully as
Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER. There's
one shot in particular that seems to linger on
J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) for what
seems like an unsettling eternity as it slowly
dollies in. We see a man who's
simultaneously ravaged by unending guilt and
despair for the future of humanity. He's
helpless. He knows that his overseeing of
the construction of the world's first atomic
bomb will not have a peaceful ending...
Posted
August
5, 2023
|

|
MISSION:
IMPOSSIBLE -
DEAD
RECKONING: PART 1
(PG-13)
This
series has not self destructed seven films in...
Your
mission - if you choose to accept it - is
to acknowledge that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE just
might be the finest movie franchise in history
and that star Tom Cruise is easily the most
fanatically committed showman working in the
industry. I don't think that this is a
hyperbolic proposition. Ever
since it started way, way back in 1996
with the Brian De Palma directed series
introductory chapter (based, many forget, on the
classic TV series of the same name)...
Posted
July
26, 2023
|

|
KANDAHAR
(R)
A
deja vu Gerard Butler action thriller
KANDAHAR
has a few things going against it. Firstly,
it wants to have its cake and eat it too in
terms of yearning to simultaneously be a
thrilling Gerard Butler action film vehicle and
a sobering take on modern war and America's
dicey involvement in foreign countries. Secondly,
the film is shockingly similar to the much
better and recently released GUY RITCHIE'S THE
COVENANT, which also explored an American
military man and his relationship with a foreign
translator...
Posted
July
26, 2023
|

|
THE
SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE
(PG) 1/2
Mamma
mia...this movie needs a firmware update!
It's
odd that the word movie is in the title
of THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE. This
is barely a movie. This
is more of a 90-plus minute nostalgia-baiting
commercial ad to peddle a well cherished brand.
Of course,
I'm talking about Nintendo's iconic mascot in
Mario, who began so modestly as a creation by
Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto in the
early 80s and has exploded into seemingly every
facet of the media world over the last four
decades...
Posted
July
21, 2023
|

|
THE
POPE'S EXORCIST (R)
The
power of Christ compels Crowe
The
new supernatural horror thriller THE POPE'S
EXORCIST is loosely (and I'm guessing ever so
loosely) based on the real life exploits of
Father Gabriele Amorth, who was the chief
exorcist for the Vatican and, yes, the Pope
himself. Taken from two books penned by
the Father, THE POPE'S EXORCIST delves into his
devil cleansing exploits in the 1980s, which
gained him a fair amount of recognition and
publicity. It has been said that he has
done tens of thousands of exorcisms. Okay,
then. Sure. I'll bite...
Posted
July
21, 2023
|

|
INDIANA
JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
(PG-13)
Raiders
of the continental drifts
"A
few times in my life, I've seen things,"
says the raspy-voiced and nearly 80-years-old
Indiana Jones at one key and humorous point in
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. "I
drank the blood of Kali...I've been tortured
with voodoo...I've been shot nine times!"
He boasts this to his partner while scaling a
very steep rock wall in search of a specific
piece of antiquity at a time in his life when he
should be in a retirement home. I
would also add that he drank from the cup that
Jesus Christ used during the Last Supper and
even had a close encounter with interdimensional
beings...
Posted
July
13, 2023
|

|
BIG
GEORGE FOREMAN
(PG-13)
A
sports biopic of small returns
George
Foreman's career made so many bizarre twists and
turns that I doubt even the craziest Hollywood
script doctors could have dreamt them up. Just
consider this: He went from an impoverished
childhood to a boxing wanna-be to 1968 Olympic
Gold medallist in lightning fast ascension.
He then scored a shocking 1973 second
round knock-out of then undefeated and seemingly
unbeatable heavyweight champion Joe Fraizer.
At the top of his form, Foreman lost his
championship to Muhammad Ali in the legendary
"Rumble in the Jungle" in 1974...
Posted
July
13, 2023
|

|
GUY
RITCHIE'S THE COVENANT
(R) 1/2
Men
of honor on both sides of the fence
If
it wasn't for the fact that his name is in the
title, I would have been hard pressed to know
that director Guy Ritchie was the man behind -
to quote its full title - GUY RITCHIE'S THE
COVENANT. I
mean that as a sincere compliment. Ritchie's
recent resume has been a mixed bag affair.
For every well oiled WRATH OF MAN and THE
GENTLEMEN there have been hopelessly misguided
efforts like his live action ALADDIN remake for
Disney or - more recently - his easily
forgettable espionage thriller OPERATION
FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE (yeah...who would
remember that title?)...
Posted
July
4, 2023
|

|
BLACKBERRY
(R) 1/2
How
even the mightiest can fall
Back
in the day, I absolutely loved my BlackBerry
Torch. It was my first smart phone.
I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced
bread. It had that large screen that you
could flip up with your finger to reveal a
physical keyboard underneath. And those
clickable tactile buttons! I dug those the
most. For a person that made a relatively
late transition into smart phones, I thought
this device was a game changer. The power
of a computer in my pocket. At the
time, I honestly thought nothing could top it. Annnnnnnd
then I got my first iPhone...and I never picked
up a BlackBerry again...
Posted
July
4, 2023
|

|
THE
FLASH (PG-13)
Barry
Allen and the multiverse of madness
THE
FLASH has its roots deeply embedded in The
Butterfly Effect, which refers to the idea that
a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of
the world might create changes in the atmosphere
that could drastically alter severe weather
patterns in another location. In short:
tiny and localized changes can have far-reaching
implications. In
this 13th installment of the DCEU, Barry Allen
(Ezra Miller) realizes that being the fastest
man on the planet has granted him the ability to
run so fast that he can travel back in time...
Posted
June
28, 2023
|

|
EXTRACTION
2
(R)
|
|
Raking
in a high body count...again!
Netflix's
EXTRACTION 2 features the new adventures of
Tyler Rake (what an amazingly preposterous
name), the ex-special forces soldier with the
Australian Army that later became a mercenary
for hire that very much appeared to be dead at
the end of the 2020 franchise introductory
installment. But - wouldn't ya know it?
- he did manage to survive the hellish ordeal of
his last mission and engages in a very Rocky
Balboa-esque training montage to hilariously
recover very quickly from his near fatal wounds
in order to take his next dangerous assignment..
Posted
June
28, 2023
|

|
A
GOOD PERSON (R) 1/2
How
to lose friends and alienate people
Zach
Braff has had a disappointingly inconsistent
career behind the camera, to say the least.
His 2004 cult hit GARDEN STATE was such an
auspicious filmmaking debut and one that spoke
to me so much that I put it on my list of that
year's Ten Best Films. I thought the
possibilities were fairly limitless for Braff,
but it would take a decade before he would make
another film, which came in the form of the very
publicly crowdfunded WISH I WERE HERE, which
regrettably didn't capture his rookie film's
novelty and was a largely missed opportunity...
Posted
June
24, 2023
|

|
MASTER
GARDENER (R)
Schrader's
impeccably landscaped drama
It's
safe to say that the 76-year-old Paul Schrader
has been on one of the best rolls of his
directorial career. As
a screenwriter, he's arguably among the finest
in his craft, having penned two of the greatest
films of all time in Martin Scorsese's TAXI
DRIVER and RAGING BULL, but he's often
overlooked for this work behind the camera as
well. One thematic element that seems to
coalesce through many of his films is that of
doomed men that are trying - via various unique
means - to find some sort of personal salvation...
Posted
June
24, 2023
|

|
SPIDER-MAN:
ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (PG)
1/2
With
great universe hopping power comes great
universe hopping responsibility
Even
though I liked 2018's SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE
SPIDER-VERSE, I honestly wasn’t as completely
enamored with it as most, seeing as it sometimes
distractingly bombarded audience members with
too many fourth wall breaking self-aware gags
for its own good that distracted from the whole.
However,
I'll still wholeheartedly concede that (a) this
Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney
Rothman directed animated film gave proper and
due time to Miles Morales as the main Spidey
protagonist, the first mixed-race super hero
ever...
Posted
June
16, 2023
|

|
CHAMPIONS
(PG-13)
1/2
Hoop
Dreams: The Farrelly version
I'll
defend the Farrelly Brothers with respect to the
fact that they have arguably done more for
inclusiveness on their movie sets and
productions for people with disabilities than
anyone else in Hollywood. Ever since
1996's uproarious KINGPIN (still their greatest
comedy), this sibling filmmaking duo have gone
out of their way to champion people with
disabilities and putting them in their films in
various forms in front of and behind the camera.
Everything from actors with spina bifida to
wheelchair-bound performers to those with
developmental and/or intellectual disabilities
have shown up in bit roles, extras, and even
supporting characters...
Posted
June
16, 2023
|

|
FAST
X (PG-13)
1/2
Running
on fumes as it crosses the series finish line
I
cannot believe that we've made it to TEN (count
'em...TEN!!!) entries in the FAST AND
FURIOUS series. Where
has the time gone? It's
almost unfathomable to think that this once
simple, but effective POINT BREAK clone from 22
year years ago began so modestly as a tale of
underground street racers and DVD player thieves.
Over the
course of the last two decades, the exploits of
Dominic Toretto and his "family" have
seen crazy levels of unpredictable evolution,
with each sequel - some great, some good, and
some not so good - finding ways of upping
the ante of ridiculous stunts and action set
pieces...
Posted
June
7, 2023
|

|
SISU
(R)
1/2
A
Finnish gold prospecting inglorious basterd!
SISU
- as its opening title cards reveal - is a
nearly untranslatable word, but can be best
identified as one that implies unbreakable
determination. This
title is fitting. SISU
is one of the great blunt force trauma action
pictures of recent memory, one that juicily
mixes the real historical horrors of World War
II with the action hero pictures of the 1980s
with a sensationalistic B-movie sensibility.
It has a deceptively simple-minded, but
efficiently told story...
Posted
June
7, 2023
|

|
COCAINE
BEAR (R)
1/2
Failing
to get high on its own supply
I
checked my watch very early on at my screening
of COCAINE BEAR. I was barely 30 minutes
into it and the thought (at the time) of making
it through its next 65 minutes felt pretty
daunting to me. Then...I
realized something profound: I
don't like cocaine. I don't like
bears. I don't like bears high on
cocaine. I didn't find bears high on
cocaine to be funny. I didn't find bears
high on cocaine to be scary. I'm just
saying NO to COCAINE BEAR...
Posted
May
29, 2023
|

|
PAINT
(PG-13)

A
not-so happy accident
If
you go into PAINT (as I did) completely blind,
then it would be easy to assume that this is
some sort of biopic of public broadcasting art
legend Bob Ross, who became a cult phenomenon
for his soft spoken inspirational painting show
that ran on PBS for many years up until his
death in 1995. His nationally syndicated
THE JOY OF PAINTING (1983-1994) has recently
been picked up by modern day streaming services
to play it on permanent rewind for a whole new
generation of Ross aficionados...
Posted
May
29, 2023
|

|
Hell
hath no fury like a mama scorned
Blandness
taints Netflix's new action thriller THE
MOTHER...on multiple levels. Just look at
its title. It's dull. It doesn't
inspire excitement. Then look at its
overall storyline (amazing, the product of not
one, not two, but three writers) that
travels down just about every obligatory revenge
genre cliché imaginable. Then consider
how it's a somewhat lazy and uninspired
hodgepodge of multiple other espionage/assassin
franchises (and far better ones, at that)...
Posted
May
25, 2023
|

|
STILL:
A MICHAEL J FOX MOVIE (R) 1/2
|
 |
The
secret of my success
There's
a moment in the sensational new Apple-produced
documentary STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE that
does an incredible job of encapsulating just
what a good sport the actor is and what a
wonderful self-deprecating sense of humor he
possesses. It involves a riotously
funny clip from the series CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM,
which has the star playing himself opposite
Larry David. Fox hands over a bottle of
soda to David, but when the latter opens it, the
contents gush out and explode all over him...
Posted
May 25, 2023
|

|
GUARDIANS
OF THE GALAXY:
VOLUME
3 (PG-13)
A
trilogy closer mixtape worth exploring
Looking
back, the very first GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
back in 2016 was a small-scale miracle. What
writer/director James Gunn achieved was not
easy. He took a series of what would be
best described as B or C-list Marvel Comics
characters and somehow made their cinematic
adventures work (and work marvelously) and, in
the process, the resulting film became a box
office bonanza. To say that this first
film was a huge gamble for the MCU is a huge
understatement...
Posted
May
16, 2023
|

|
SCREAM
VI (R)
1/2
Ghostface
takes Manhattan
There's
a current WGA strike occurring in Hollywood
right now, which has led to some online chatter
about the potential implementation of A.I.
programs to finish work off that actual human
writers started. Yeah, I l know...that
sounds utterly asinine. How could an A.I.
program capture the heart and soul of a
person constructing a screenplay? Beats
me. Then I watched SCREAM VI - yes...six!
- and afterwards I noticed that it was
written by James Vanderbuilt and Guy Busick (as
well as being directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
and Tyler Gillett, who helmed the last SCREAM in
2022)...
Posted
May
16, 2023
|
|
ARE
YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME MARGARET. (PG-13)
Something
tells me that He's listening...
I'm
often asked by many: What makes any
particular film great? That's
an inordinately difficult question to answer,
but one metric - among many - that I've used
over the years is that a great film has an
ability to speak personally and deeply to me,
even if I'm not the target demographic. I
thought about that all the way through
writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig's ARE YOU
THERE GOD? IT'S ME MARGARET, which is based, in
turn, on Judy Blume's seminal 1970 novel of the
same name...
Posted
May
9, 2023
|

|
PETER
PAN & WENDY
(PG)
1/2
Another
Disney live action remake that refuses to grow
up
The
thought of watching yet another live action
adaptation of Walt Disney's 1953 animated film
PETER PAN had very little appeal to me. Firstly,
there have been so many relative kicks to the
can, so to speak, in terms of redos of the
property, whether it be in Steven Spielberg's
HOOK or - more recently and horrendously - Joe
Wright's completely wrongheaded PAN. Secondly,
I could devote an entire article about how
little I care for the House of Mouse's continual
milking their animated film catalogue in order
to rebrand them in "new" live action
properties...
Posted
May
9, 2023
|

|
JESUS
REVOLUTION
(PG-13)
A
soft pedaled and sanitized historical drama that
won't convert many
I
often go into faith-based movies with a mostly
defensive-minded posture, essentially because
(a) I'm definitely not the target demographic and
(b) most films of this ilk usually aren't made
to the highest qualitative standards.
Having said that, I don't have to be the target
audience for any film to like and/or appreciate
it, especially if it goes beyond my expectations
for said material. JESUS REVOLUTION
appealed to me primarily as a student of
history, seeing as it delves into an evangelical
Christian movement that began on the West Coast
of the U.S. in the late 60s and early 70s...
Posted
May
9, 2023
|

|
RENFIELD
(R)
Cage:
dead and loving it!
I'm
quite positive that - for fans of Nicholas
Cage's most gonzo performances - that the new
horror-comedy RENFIELD had them with one simple
proposition: Nic
Cage...plays Count Dracula. Consider
me sold. But...wait
a tick...didn't the actor play a member of the
undead before way, way back in 1988's
extremely kooky, but deliriously entertaining
VAMPIRE'S KISS? Well, yes, but this time -
several decades later - the Oscar-winner is playing
the mother of all blood-suckers in Dracula
himself...
Posted
April
27, 2023
|

|
GHOSTED
(PG-13)
|
 |
A
romantic spy comedy best left ignored
Within
the first three minutes of the new romantic spy
comedy GHOSTED - an Apple Original Film - one
character is using Apple CarPlay and enjoying
its hands-free features while commuting. A
minute-plus later and a different character is
using Apple AirTags to find a missing item...via
his iPhone. This is the most
Apple film that Apple has ever Appled. Hyper
aggressive and beyond obvious product placement
in its early stages aside, there are an unending
number of other problems with GHOSTED...
Posted
April 27, 2023
|

|
80
FOR BRADY (PG-13)
1/2
A
sports comedy with laughs sacked out of it
I
went into the new sports comedy 80 FOR BRADY
with two competing mindsets. First,
I was like, wow, this film features a relative
who's-who of legendary Hollywood actresses -
Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally
Field. The idea that they're all
pooling their considerable talents together in a
single movie for the first - and considering the
stage of their respective careers, arguably the
last - time is enticing, to say the least.
Secondly -
and more distractingly - this film seems like
one large piece of product placement for not
only the NFL and New England Patriots, but also
for its former multiple Super Bowl winning
quarterback...
Posted
April
27, 2023
|

|
AIR
(R)
Affleck
shoots a nothing but net game winner
The
new historical sports drama AIR - director Ben
Affleck's fifth film and his first behind the
camera since 2016's LIVE BY NIGHT - takes its
name from the famous brand of Nike basketball
shoes that were produced for Michael Jordan back
in 1984. Designed for the company by Peter
Moore, Tinker Hatfield, and Bruce Kilgore, the
first Air Jordans hit the market for consumers
the following year, coming after Nike's
courtship and signing of Jordan to a then
unheard of five year, $2.5 million dollar
marketing contract...
Posted
April
20, 2023
|

|
OPERATION
FORTUNE:
RUSE
DE GUERRE (R) 1/2
Mission:
Mostly Possible
The
somewhat oddly titled OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE
GUERRE (yeah, it doesn't exactly roll of the
tongue, does it?) represents the fifth
collaboration between director Guy Ritchie and
star Jason Statham, who previously worked
together on the terribly underrated heist
thriller WRATH OF MAN (that film, alongside the
very decent THE GENTLEMEN, represented a solid
return to form for Ritchie after wallowing in
Disney live action remake waters like ALADDIN
and the bloated and forgettable KING ARTHUR:
LEGEND OF THE SWORD)...
Posted
April
20, 2023
|
|
DUNGEONS
& DRAGONS:
HONOR
AMONG THIEVES
(PG-13)
Rolling
the dice and scoring decent damage
I'm
old enough to remember playing DUNGEONS &
DRAGONS when the Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson
created tabletop role playing game was still in
its relative infancy back in the early
80s. It's
pretty amazing to see how the game has evolved
and attracted new generations of players in its
near fifty-year history. One of its
cornerstones (in its various forms) is players
creating and controlling their own characters
and their respective destinies, not to mention
that individual campaigns were further built
upon by squads using their imaginations and
sense of teamwork to overcome any foe or
obstacle thrown in their paths...
Posted
April
20, 2023
|

|
TETRIS
(R)
|
 |
Brick
for brick, an entertaining piece of gaming
history
I
know people that would never profess to be a
gamer or know anything much about the larger
gaming industry, but these same people have
undoubtedly heard of and/or played Tetris.
It's a puzzle game of stark and addictive
simplicity, one that can easily be picked up and
started by seemingly anyone of any age group.
Created by software engineer Alexey
Pajitnov in 1984, the game began from the
humblest of beginnings before it took the larger
world by storm...
Posted
April 11, 2023
|

|
M3GAN
(PG-13)
1/2
A
mostly bland facsimile in the killer doll horror
genre
M3GAN
(not a typo) is the latest in the
horror-thriller sub-genre involving (a) an A.I.
infused robot that becomes self-aware and
homicidal towards its human overlords and (b) a
killer doll that's befriended by a child,
leading to all sorts of thorny consequences.
It comes from Blumhouse with a co-story
credit from James Wan (co-creator of the SAW,
INSIDIOUS and THE CONJURING franchises) and
seems largely inspired by the CHILD'S PLAY films
to a large and sometimes distracting degree...
Posted
April
11, 2023
|

|
JOHN
WICK: CHAPTER 4
(R)
1/2
Your
descent into hell ends here, Mr. Wick
In
my review of the last JOHN WICK back in 2019, I
lovingly referred to it in the grand tradition
of what the late Roger Ebert coined as a
magnificent "Bruised Forearm Movie,"
or the kind of movie "where your date is
always grabbing your forearm in a viselike grip,
as unbearable excitement unfolds on the
screen." I
thought that JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3: PARABELLUM
was one of the greatest Bruised Forearm
Movies ever made, with its previous two
series installments being highly worthy of said
moniker as well...
Posted
April
6, 2023
|

|
MISSING
(PG-13)

Don't
let your mom out of your sight
MISSING
serves as a standalone sequel to 2018's
SEARCHING (seen, but not reviewed by me), which
concerned a desperate father looking for his
lost daughter while employing everything from
laptops, cell phones, surveillance footage, and
so forth (I've heard the descriptors
"desktop" and "screenlife"
thriller being used when talking about this
film). The screenwriters of that film -
Will Merrick and Nick Johnson - returned to not
only write MISSING, but also work behind the
camera this go around, making their collective
feature film directorial debuts...
Posted
April
6, 2023
|

|
SHAZAM!
FURY OF THE GODS
(PG-13) 
An
undisciplined sequel that's still strong in spirit,
pure in heart
One
of the main reasons why the first SHAZAM! movie
worked so well was because it not only
represented a welcome and refreshing tonal shift
from the darker DCEU films that predicated it,
but it also contained an infectious wish-fulfillment
fantasy premise of a young teen being able to
magically transform into an adult super hero
with powers that would rival Superman (think BIG
cross morphed with comic book fiction and you
kind of get the idea)...
Posted
March
28, 2023
|

|
65
(PG-13)

The
Last of Us: The Cretaceous years
65
is a weird conundrum of a science fiction
thriller. It
comes from the writer/director tandem of Scott
Beck and Bryan Woods (they previously and most
famously co-wrote the ingenious A QUIET PLACE)
and has a premise that's equal parts baffling
and intriguing. Moreover, they lay all of
their cards down in terms of the screenplay's
secrets early on (like...waaaaay early
on) to the point where I was left wondering
whether or not they could have been best left as
a twisty reveal in the film's final passages...
Posted
March
28, 2023
|

|
BOSTON
STRANGLER (R) 1/2
On
the trail of the Phantom Fiend
BOSTON
STRANGLER is a new historical crime thriller
that delves into one of the most frightening
mass murder sprees in U.S. history and the saga
of two female journalists trying to crack the
case. Of course, the film takes its name
from the fact-based perpetrator of the killing
of thirteen women in the Greater Boston area in
the early 60s, who managed to use various
nefarious means to get his victims to allow him
into their respective homes...
Posted
March
28, 2023
|

|
CREED
III (PG-13)

Creed
3, Rocky 0
For
the first time in the CREED franchise, star
Michael B. Jordan has taken a page out of
Sylvester Stallone's playbook and has assumed
the mantle of director, giving him a level of
creative control not previously granted to him.
This seems like a logical career and
series move, seeing as Stallone directed all but
two of the ROCKY films that gave birth to CREED,
so part of the excitement in seeing this third
installment of the boxing exploits of Apollo's
son is in witnessing what Jordan can do behind
the camera and bring to the table here...
Posted
March
18, 2023
|

|
MARLOWE
(R)

A
private detective with a particular set of
skills
So
many talented actors have played Raymond
Chandler's hard-boiled detective Phillip Marlowe
throughout cinematic history that it becomes
rather hard to keep track of them all. The
most noteworthy and famous of the lot would
easily be Humphrey Bogart in 1946's THE BIG
SLEEP, but let's also not forget about Elliott
Gould in 1973's THE LONG GOODBYE or Robert
Mitchum twice in 1978's FAREWELL MY LOVELY and
1978's THE BIG SLEEP...
Posted
March
18, 2023
|

|
ANT-MAN
AND THE WASP:
QUANTUMANIA
(PG-13)

No
franchise is too - ahem! - big to fail
The
main problem with ANT-MAN AND THE WASP:
QUANTUMANIA is - paradoxically enough - that
it's too overstuffed and...well...big for
its own good and seems to forget what made the
first film in the series such a refreshing and
subversive delight.
One
of the reasons that I thought that 2015's ANT-MAN
worked so well (and within the larger MCU) is
that it was less concerned with slavishly
continuing on massive franchise story arcs for
AVENGERS films to come and instead honed in on
telling an origin tale of a working class
everyman hero and his small scale adventures...
Posted
March
8, 2023
|

|
Neither
a funny or scary haunted house flick
Part
of me was looking forward to Netflix's new
supernatural horror comedy WE HAVE A GHOST,
mostly because it comes from writer/director
Christopher Landon, who previously made the
splendid time looping HAPPY DEATH DEATH, which
he followed that up with the insanely silly, but
insanely enjoyable sequel HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U.
His latest cross pollinated genre offering
- based on the short story ERNEST by Geoff
Manaugh - concerns a family that moves into a
spooky looking house, discovers that a ghost is
there, and then proceed to shoot footage of it
and then posts it in on YouTube...
Posted
March
8, 2023
|

|
WHEN
YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD (R)

Not
the saviors we're looking for
Very
few of the characters that populate
writer/director Jesse Eisenberg's coming of age
dramedy WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD come
off like real people.
His directorial debut seems filled with
weirdly idiosyncratic personalities that - in
their own unique way - are so off-putting and
creepy in their behavior that I spent a majority
of the film's 90 minute running time trying to
figure out who these people were, what their
purpose was in the story, and ultimately what
Eisenberg was trying to say about them in the
process...
Posted
March
8, 2023
|

|
THE
WHALE (R)

Requiem
for a Herman Melville dream
I'll
defend writer/director Darren Aronofsky by
saying that he's the kind of button-pushing
provocateur that can be commended for tackling
subject matter and characters that arguably many
other filmmakers wouldn't with a proverbial
ten-foot pole. I've always been of the
decidedly love it, or leave it variety when it
come to appreciating his work. For every
masterful character study like BLACK SWAN
or THE WRESTLER there have been problematic
productions like his take on the Biblical story
of NOAH or his too esoteric and odd for its own
good MOTHER! and THE FOUNTAIN...
Posted
March
8, 2023
|

|
SHARPER
(R)
|
 |
Be
careful who you steal from
There's a telling
moment in the new thriller SHARPER that features one character informing
another "If you're going to steal...steal a lot."
The film -
playing now on Apple TV+ after a short theatrical engagement - tells a
labyrinthine tale of a group of tightly connected people in The Big Apple
royally screwing each other over - in one form or another - to gain
control of one man's vast fortune.
It all sounds like pretty garden variety con artist fiction, not to
mention that grifter stories of the have nots trying to rob the haves are
as old as the genre...
Posted
February 28, 2023
|

|
SOMEBODY
I USED TO KNOW (R)
 1/2
|
|
You
can never really go home again
Actor
turned director Dave Franco first cut his teeth
behind the camera with the fairly well oiled
2020 thriller THE RENTAL, and now for his
sophomore effort he's opted for something
completely different with the romcom SOMEBODY I
USED TO KNOW, which was co-written and stars his
wife in Alison Brie.
Whereas
Franco's rookie picture was as a chillfest, his
latest goes the more broad and silly route in
telling a tale of a career minded woman that has
faced recent occupational hardships, so she
returns home...
Posted
February 24,
2022
|
|
YOUR
PLACE OR MINE (PG-13)

|
|
I
chose neither place
A
constant sentiment
that always pops up in defense of most
romcoms is that an overtly predictable ending
featuring the two lead characters finally coming
together to express their mutual love for one
another isn't a knock against the film; it's the
whole journey with these characters towards such
a happily-ever-after conclusion is what counts
most.
That, and if you like these two people in
question then that's half the battle as well,
seeing as you want to root them on to
everlasting romantic bliss...
Posted
February
24, 2023
|

|
KNOCK
AT THE CABIN (R)
They're
on a mission from Gawd!
I'm
going to say something right from the get-go
about KNOCK AT THE CABIN that I have not said
about a M. Night Shyamalan film in over twenty
years...wait for for...KNOCK
AT THE CABIN is the first film from the director
in a long, long, long time that has
modestly evoked the finer elements of his career
defining efforts of the late 90s and early
2000s.
This
represents a decent return to form for Shyamalan. Now,
you're going to have to take that with a grain
of salt, folks...
Posted
February
15, 2023
|

|
ALICE,
DARLING (R)
 1/2
Treading
through dangerous waters
There's
probably no better example in recent memory of a
single actress elevating so-so material and
uneven storytelling than Anna Kendrick in the
new psychological thriller ALICE, DARLING.
If
you're used to seeing her in more happy-go-lucky
and bubbly roles (such as in the PITCH PERFECT
series) then her new film should serve as an
immediate wake-up call (and perhaps reminder) of
the types of serious roles that she can be
superb in when given the right chance (UP IN THE
AIR comes immediately to mind).
In Mary Nighy's (daughter of Bill)
feature film directorial debut she plays a
traumatized woman that's involved in a deeply
abusive relationship...
Posted
February
15, 2023
|

|
YOU
PEOPLE (R)
1/2
|
|
This
movie, man...
Netflix's
YOU PEOPLE is a comedy of stunning and almost
unfathomable awfulness that would have only been
made better if my stream of it started buffering
horribly from the onset and impeded my ability
to make it all the way through to its end.
The
film is also made all the more shameful because
(a) it's trying to tackle some serious issues
about modern day race relations in the most
contrived and sitcom-worthy manner possible and
(b) it contains some incredibly talented actors
that have been proven to be funny in films
before, but here wallow in one tone deaf and
inexcusably hackneyed scene after another...
Posted
February
9, 2023
|

|
SHOTGUN
WEDDING
(PG-13) 1/2
|
|
Josh
and Jenny packing heat and not much else
The
new action/comedy SHOTGUN WEDDING has a premise
that should have delivered on both action
and comedy, but manages to mostly fail in
both respects.
The film concerns a destination wedding
on a private island in the Philippines that
becomes overtaken by pirates that then take all
of the guests hostage and try to ransom them for
$45 million, with the bride and groom being
forced to go into full-on John McClane mode and
save everyone. I
mean, this should have worked...right...
Posted
February 9,
2022
|

|
TAR
(R)
Blanchett:
The masterful conductor of madness
I
know so very little about the world of music
conductors and composers, which is why I was
frankly surprised to learn that writer/director
Todd Field's TAR is not based on a true story.
Like...at
all. It's
one of those rare breed of out-of-body pieces of
escapism that feels so lived-in and real
that it must be based on a true story,
right? Miraculously, it's not.
Making a return to the director's chair
after a long absence (his last film was his
critically acclaimed 2006 effort LITTLE
CHILDREN)...
Posted
February
9, 2023
|

|
PLANE
(R)
Butler
has fallen!
PLANE
is one of the better films with an ultra bland
title that I've seen in awhile.
I mean, you look at that word on the
poster and it just doesn't scream out at you,
does it?
But
this action thriller does - sarcasm aside -
boast a premise of simple economy: Gerald Butler
plays a rugged and tough pilot whose plane crash
lands on an island, leaving himself, the crew
and passengers having to fend off blood thirsty
militants that reside there...
Posted
January
31, 2023
|

|
KIDS
VS ALIENS (R)

F*%K
SPACE!!!
I
really, really, really wanted to like
this film.
Gosh,
did I ever. I
mean, it's called KIDS VS. ALIENS!
That alone drums up so many juicy
possibilities, doesn't it?
And it's from writer/director Jason
Eisener, whom previously made his last feature
film debut way, way back in the
spectacularly trashy grindhouse effort HOBO WITH
A SHOTGUN, which starred the late Rutger Hauer
as the titular character that was (yes) a hobo
that (also yes) wielded a shotgun.
..
Posted
January
31, 2023
|

|
AFTERSUN
(R)
Through
the sands of time
I've
read that writer/director Charlotte Wells based
AFTERSUN (her feature film debut) on a personal
moment when she was casually looking at a family
photo album and noticed a particular picture of
her dad that struck her for how young he looked
in it.
I
know precisely how she felt.
I
was recently flipping through photos from my own
high school graduation and was kind of blown
away by the thought that my own father - posing
right next to me during that time - was actually
the same age that I am right now...
Posted
January
31, 2023
|

|
THE
OLD WAY (R)
1/2
A
genre effort as old and dry as the hills
The
new Western drama THE OLD WAY has a very apt
title.
It's
the kind of paint-by-numbers effort that
utilizes just about every old and tired genre
cliché imaginable and somehow tries to pawn
itself off as something fresh and new.
That,
and - holy crap! - this is the very first
Western feature film release to star industry
veteran Nicholas Cage, who has astoundingly
enough (and over the course of his long 40-year
career) never put on a cowboy hat and saddled up
for one of these types of films...
Posted
January
21, 2023
|

|
THE
PALE BLUE EYE
(R)
|
|
Poe
and the dark night detective
It's
kind of astounding how this latest cinematic
marriage between writer/director Scott Cooper
and star Christian Bale - who previously teamed
up to make the very good OUT OF THE FURNACE and
the masterful HOSTILES - seems to by
unceremoniously flying under everyone's radars
and has been somewhat nonchalantly released on
Netflix.
Their
latest endeavor is the chilling murder mystery
period thriller THE PALE BLUE EYE (based on
Louis Bayard's 2003 novel of the same name) and
it contains a deeply tantalizing premise...
Posted
January
21, 2023
|

|
BABYLON
(R)
The
hardcore Roaring Twenties
I
can't think of another film in recent memory that comes out audaciously
swinging for the fences the way that Damien Chazelle's BABYLON does, which
careens down its significant three-hour-plus running time like a beguiling
and endlessly energized fever dream that doesn't seem to let up. Chazelle
made a name for himself with his rookie debut effort in WHIPLASH and then
later followed that up with his Oscar winning musical LA LA LAND (which
netted him a very deserving Academy Award for Best Director, the youngest
to ever win).
Then came his masterfully helmed FIRST MAN...
Posted
January
14, 2023
|

|
THE
MENU (R)
1/2
A
full course meal of hilarity and depravity
I love it when
films eviscerate their targets with a reckless abandon, and that's
precisely what director Mark Mylod's THE MENU does to such darkly
delicious effect. The film - his
first in over a decade - has its crosshairs honed in on multiple targets,
most specifically the disgustingly rich
elite, the pompous critic (hey now!), social media celebrities, the
obsessive meticulousness of the gourmet food world, and the equally
fanatical foodies that prop up master chefs to an unhealthy pillar of hero
worship...
Posted
January
14, 2023
|

|
Don't
look up!
Even
though that I have not read it myself, there has
been ample discussion over the years about Don
DeLillo's 1985 absurdist novel WHITE NOISE being
completely unfilmable.
After watching writer/director Noah
Baumbach's committed, but ultimately meandering
and unwieldy Netflix produced film adaptation I
can easily see why.
The
source material is certainly ambitious in its
tone and scope, and appropriating such work for
silver screen consumption is - no doubt - an
unenviable and commendable task in its own
right...
Posted
January
14, 2023
|

|
GLASS
ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY
(PG-13)
|
|
Oh
fiddlesticks...another murder
There's
a moment deep into GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT
MYSTERY when writer/director Rian Johnson
engages in multiple levels of devilish
misdirection.
And it's pretty ingenious in the manner
that it radically changes the perspective that
audiences have for not only the murder suspects
(this is, after all, a murder mystery), but also
for the sleuth himself in Benoit Blanc, played
once again with unbridled enthusiasm and a
mischievous edge by Daniel Craig...
Posted
January
4, 2023
|

|
HALLOWEEN
ENDS (R)
1/2
Stay
dead, please...
I
will say this for HALLOWEEN ENDS in terms of
opening this review on a positive: This third
film in the semi-self-contained trilogy set in
the same universe of the iconic John Carpenter
directed slasher original from 1978 shows
co-writer and director David Gordon Green taking
some ballsy creative risks with the storyline
established in 2018's sort of sequel/sort of
reboot entry.
That's
good. Compared
directly to 2021's laughably awful HALLOWEEN
KILLS (an installment made with technical
proficiency, yes, but one that was fundamentally
awful on a storytelling and thematic front)...
Posted
January
4, 2023
|

|
AVATAR:
THE WAY OF WATER
(PG-13)
The
blue Pandora lagoon
Over
ten years ago I wrote an article about the most
influential films of the past quarter
of a century and I put
the then relatively new AVATAR on it.
I
remember seeing James Cameron's
decade-in-development sci-fi action epic in
cinemas way, way back in 2009 and was
firm in my belief that it represented the most
seismic change in movie making since George
Lucas' original STAR WARS.
Marrying state of the art and unheard of
performance capture technology with simple
storytelling, AVATAR showed that what was once
thought impossible was now possible...
Posted
December 26, 2022
|

|
THE
FABELMANS (PG-13)
They
say you want to be a picture maker...
I
remember when I was five-years-old and my father
took me to biggest cinema that Saskatoon had to
offer so I could watch the original STAR WARS
for the first time.
When I sat in that movie palace I felt
like I was on hallowed ground.
The curtains rose (they don't do that in
multiplexes anymore!), John Williams' opening
fanfare blasted out of the sound system, and
then that staggeringly awe-inspiring opening
shot came with that tiny Rebel cruiser
attempting to flee from the Empire's
unfathomably long Star Destroyer in hot pursuit.
For the first time in my life I felt
transported to a different time and place and
forgot I was in a theater...
Posted
December 26, 2022
|

|
GUILLERMO
DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO
(PG)
|
|
How
to be a real boy in fascist Italy...
One thing came to
mind all throughout my screening of ( to quote its fill title) GUILLERMO
DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO:
Man, this
is more like it!
I say this after
experiencing the other PINOCCHIO adaptation that also came this year from director Robert
Zemeckis and star Tom Hanks, who combined their not-so-inconsiderable-talents
together to make yet another on a long list of creative lazy and bankrupt
live action updates of cherished Disney animated classics...
Posted
December 22,
2022
|

|
EMANCIPATION
(R)
|
 |
A
runaway slave, a photo, and a damning legacy
The new Apple
Original Film EMANCIPATION finds its inspiration in a photograph of a man
known as "Whipped Peter", a runaway slave from a Civil War era Louisiana
plantation that managed to free himself from his captors and survived
miles upon miles of oppressive swamps to reach a Union stronghold in Baton
Rogue. While
he was there a photo of him was taken, with a heavy emphasis on his
horrifically scarred back, which was whipped so badly that it looked like
coarse leather...
Posted
December 22, 2022
|

|
CLERKS
III (R)
 1/2
I
assure you...they should be closed
In
many respects, I've grown up in real time with
Randal Graves and Dante Hicks, who both began
their movie lives in minimum wage convenience
store hell in writer/director Kevin Smith's
CLERKS.
That
1994 micro budgeted and grainy black and white
shot indie personally spoke to me all those
years ago because - like the two main slacker
characters that dominated it - I was the same
age at the time and worked at a low rent mom and
pop video store.
I felt that, yes, this was a film made
directly for me....
Posted
December 22, 2022
|

|
MY
FATHER'S DRAGON (PG)
1/2
|
|
Boris
the magic dragon...lives by the sea...
The Netflix
produced Irish-American animated fantasy MY FATHER'S DRAGON is another
entry on
an already bravura list of works from Cartoon Saloon, who
recently made the masterful WOLFWALKERS
(that proudly made my list of the TEN
BEST FILMS of 2020). Featuring
some absolutely gorgeous 2D animation (which is, sadly enough, a slowly
dying art form as far as movie releases go), hypnotic and dreamlike
imagery, and powerful themes of friendship, bravery, and tackling the fear of the
unknown...
Posted
December 15,
2022
|

|
PEARL
(R)
1/2
A
killer star is born
I
can't honestly remember the last time two horror
franchise installments - the first being a
relative standalone entry and the second being a
prequel to it - came out in the same calendar
year and just several months apart.
Writer/director Ti West's PEARL serves as
a prequel to his very own X,
which came out earlier in 2022 and was a 1970s
period specific slasher that I described -
looking back on my fond review of it - as
FRIDAY THE 13TH meets BOOGIE NIGHTS with a
healthy dosage of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
thrown in for good measure....
Posted
December 15, 2022
|

|
THE
WONDER
(R)
|
|
Don't
worry, darlings, this is the Pugh film to watch
Florence
Pugh appeared in DON'T WORRY DARLING earlier
this past fall, a high concept sci-fi drama that
was arguably most memorable because of its
scandalous behind the scenes drama at the Venice
International Film Festival.
Regardless of the online chatter
involving the stars of the film and their
feuding ways, Pugh held that wonky production
confidently together on the strength of her
performance alone.
Without her, Olivia Wilde's sophomore
effort would have been a real endurance test to
sit through...
Posted
December 9,
2022
|

|
CAUSEWAY
(R) 1/2
|
 |
Coming
home
I
remember watching WINTER'S BONE over a decade
ago starring a then completely unknown Jennifer
Lawrence and I knew at the time that this
actress had that ethereal it factor and
was going to be a major force in the industry to
come.
Not
only did she nab her first of multiple Oscar
nominations for that drama at the young age of
20, but her effortlessly natural and low key
performance helped to pave the way for her
superlative career to come, which culminated in
a very deserving Academy Award win for Best
Supporting Actress for 2012's SILVER LININGS
PLAYBOOK...
Posted
December 9, 2022
|

|
BLACK
PANTHER:
WAKANDA
FOREVER
(PG-13)
T'Challa
is gone and not forgotten, but is sorely missed
I
don't envy the position of the makers of BLACK
PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER.
Not
one bit. Imagine
trying to make a sequel to not only one of the
most popular MCU films - and films period
- of all time (the 2018 super hero epic emerged
as the seventh highest grossing film
domestically ever), but one that was also a
pioneering watershed event picture for the genre
and industry as a whole...and you must do
so without the lead actor playing the
titular character because he tragically died far
too young in real life...
Posted
December 2, 2022
|

|
SPIRITED
(PG-13) 1/2
|
 |
A
lump of coal in your Christmas movie stocking
It's
highly fitting that Apple's new Yuletide musical
comedy SPIRITED co-stars Will Ferrell, because
this is seriously the Ron Burgundy of Charles
Dickens adaptations.
This
umpteenth version of A CHRISTMAS CAROLE seems to
be - throughout its punishingly long 120-plus
minutes - screaming at viewers, "Hey
Everyone, come and see how good I look!
Come and see how hard I'm trying to make
you laugh and entertain you!!!"
Posted
December 2, 2022
|

|
THE
BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
(R)
A
tale of fractured friendship that has no time
for dullness
Writer/director
Martin McDonagh's THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
manages to cut so emotionally deep despite its
simple, but ghastly premise.
It's the kind of film where everything -
even very early on - just seems to click
into place. Everything
from the direction to the performances to its
evocation of a time from a century ago is in
perfect synch with one another and is executed
to a masterful level.
That, and THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
represents a triumphant reunion picture for
McDonagh and his stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin
Farrell...
Posted
November 23, 2022
|
|
A
CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS
(PG)
|
|
It's
a major award...I mean sequel!
I'm
struggling to recall a holiday season when A
CHRISTMAS STORY was not a part of my yearly
must-watch tradition.
Directed
with a loving eye by Bob Clark (wait a minute,
didn't he also make PORKY'S?!) and scripted (and
narrated) by Jean Shepherd (based on his own
semi-fictional anecdotes from his wonderfully
titled 1966 book IN GOD WE TRUST: ALL OTHERS PAY
CASH), this 1983 Yuletide classic has been seen
by me countless times over the decades (maybe
25...or perhaps 30-plus...I've lost track),
almost as much as I've seen IT'S A WONDERFUL
LIFE...
Posted
November 23,
2022
|

|
ENOLA
HOLMES 2 (PG-13)
|
|
Tis
I...again!
It would be
deceptively easy to dismiss the first ENOLA HOLMES and its new
sequel as just sassy and inconsequential young adult themed Nancy Drew-ian
mystery yarns (and they are certainly that, to a small degree).
But they also put a viewfinder on the gender and class norms of
Victorian England and how vast and unhealthy inequities existed within
them. I enjoyed the
first Netflix produced ENOLA HOLMES romp, mostly because it had a clever
spin on classic Sherlock Holmes mythology...
Posted
November 13,
2022
|

|
CONFESS,
FLETCH
(R)
Welcome
back, Irwin Fletcher
There was a time
when I thought that I'd never see another cinematic adventure featuring
Gregory MacDonald's literary creation of the smoothly sarcastic
investigative reporter Irwin Maurice "Fletch" Fletcher. The mystery
writer penned eleven Fletch novels in total, and despite the character's
popularity there have only been two films based on them, 1985's FLETCH
(which was taken from the first novel and featured, for my money, star Chevy
Chase's greatest role and performance) and the sequel four years later in FLETCH
LIVES (easily the lesser of the two and not based on any of MacDonald's
previous work)...
Posted
November 13, 2022
|

|
BARBARIAN
(R)
Someone
didn't check the reviews for this Airbnb
Writer/director
Zach Cregger's BARBARIAN (marking his feature
film debut) is the kind of spine-tingling and
sensationally effective (at least early on)
horror film that seems to write itself into a
corner in its latter stages and is ultimately
unsure as to how it really wants to conclude its
truly grisly storyline.
I
will say this with supreme confidence, though:
The first 45 or so minutes of this chilling low
budget $5 million scarefest are about as pitch
perfectly executed as anything that I've seen -
regardless of genre - all year...
Posted
November 9, 2022
|

|
WENDELL
AND WILD
(PG)
1/2
|
|
Too
hellishly wild and unwieldy
Netflix's
WENDELL & WILD features a pretty damn great creative
partnership in celebrated stop motion animation director Henry Selick (who
previously and most famously made THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, JAMES
AND THE GIANT PEACH, and CORALINE) and producer/co-writer Jordan Peele
(who also appears in voice form with his long-time comedic partner in
crime in Keegan Michael Key).
That, and this is Selick's very first animated feature behind the
camera since 2009...
Posted
November 9,
2022
|

|
BODIES
BODIES BODIES
(R)
1/2
OH
MY GAWD...so many bodies!
BODIES
BODIES BODIES has been frequently described as a
"Gen Z horror movie."
That's
sort of right, but not really entirely in tune
with its marketing, which seemed to go out of
its way to label it as a slasher horror flick.
There are elements of that genre in
director Halina Reijin's English language
feature film debut, to be sure, but this
avant-garde indie veteran seems more in tune
with making this film more of an Agatha Christie
whodunit and a psychological study of friendship
circles...
Posted
November 3, 2022
|

|
RAYMOND
& RAY
(R) 1/2
|
 |
Everybody
loves the Raymonds
The new Apple
Original Film RAYMOND & RAY has a premise that's about as odd as its
title. This Rodrigo
Garcia comedy-drama deals with two half brothers - named, yup, Raymond and
Ray - that have to attend the funeral of their long estranged and abusive
father, a man who apparently took devilish relish in tormenting his sons
while alive (he gave them both the same name as an early insulting kick to
the old baby makers) and now - via some bizarre will requirements - has
found a manner of pushing their already sensitive buttons from the grave...
Posted
November 3, 2022
|

|
BLACK
ADAM
(PG-13)
1/2
Do
you smell what Teth Adam is cookin'?
It's
staggering to consider that one of the
fundamental problems with BLACK ADAM - the
latest DC Comics inspired blockbuster, based on
the Otto Binder and C.C. Beck created character
of the same name from way back in 1945 - is not
a messy and convoluted origin tale, assaultive
CGI overload, a jam packed story with too many
characters jockeying for attention, or lazily
adhering to genre troupes, but rather that it
utterly squanders its lead star's natural and
effortless on-screen charm in the titular role...
Posted
October 28, 2022
|

|
FALL
(PG-13)
Worst.
YouTube livestream. Evvvver
FALL
is a new outdoor survival thriller that contains
a premise as economical as they come: Two women
climb a 2000 foot tall radio tower and get
stranded when they reach the top and have no
apparent way down. Yikes.
The
genre itself has exploited the most widespread
of human phobias to great effect, and if you're
afraid of heights then FALL will be almost
unendurable to sit through.
As a person that's not afraid of heights,
I found myself less frightened by the height
that these poor souls are trapped at with no
where to go and more by the notion that they
have zero options to climb down from said height
and that no outside help is reachable for them...
Posted
October 26, 2022
|

|
THE
BLACK PHONE
(R)
1/2
Sinister
calls from beyond the grave!
It
seems that Disney's loss was the horror film
world's gain with Scott Derrickson's THE BLACK
PHONE, a stupendously well oiled and intensely
thrilling new supernatural horror film.
The
writer/director may be familiar to super hero
film fans for his work on the first DOCTOR
STRANGE solo entry for the MCU, but hopes of him
returning for the sequel were crushed when he
abruptly left the production due to creative
differences, leaving THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS
being helmed by Sam Raimi instead...
Posted
October 26, 2022
|

|
AMSTERDAM
(R)
1/2
A
period murder mystery caper that's all dressed
up with no place to go
Let's
get one thing out of the way right from the
get-go: AMSTERDAM is stacked. Like...really
stacked. We
got writer/director David O. Russell - making
his first feature film in seven years after
previously scoring large critical splashes with
THE FIGHTER, AMERICAN HUSTLE, and SILVER LININGS
PLAYBOOK.
We got an all-star cast of A-listers that
includes (takes a deep breath) Christian Bale,
Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De
Niro, Michael Shannon, Andrea Riseborough, Rami
Malek, Zoe Saldana and - holy crap! - SNL
alumni Chris Rock and Mike Myers...
Posted
October 18, 2022
|

|
DON'T
WORRY DARLING
(R)
Strange
things are afoot in this Pleasantville-styled
town
Olivia
Wilde's sophomore directorial effort DON'T WORRY
DARLING has arguably gained - for better or
worse...mostly for the worse - more unhealthy
exposure and notoriety for the infamous behind
the scenes drama that plagued its showing during
last month's Venice International Film Festival,
where evidence of one lead actor spitting on
another during the premiere reared up as well as
distracting gossip about the toxic working
relationship between Wilde and her leading lady
on set.
It was the entire talk of social media
and with very little discourse being done as to
the quality of the film itself...
Posted
October 18, 2022
|

|
BLONDE
(NC-17)
1/2
|
|
Goodbye,
Norma Jean...
Netflix's NC-17
rated BLONDE professes to be about Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe - or, at
least a fictionalized version of her life and times, based on the
novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates - but I don't see much of a
thoughtful celebration/examination of this troubled celebrity's life at
all. No, director
Andrew Dominik - who previously made one of the most atmospheric and
underrated films of the 2000s in THE
ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD - has made
a film that seems fetishistically obsessed with showing every possible
manner that Monroe suffered...
Posted
October 11,
2022
|

|
THE
GREATEST BEER RUN EVER
(PG-13) 
|
 |
Wait...he
did what-now in Vietnam???
Hey, did you hear
the one about the crazy New Yorker that decided to sneak his way into the
Vietnam War in order to bring his fellow besties that were serving in
the military there some well earned brewskies?
If this was the
premise for any fictional film then I would have never been able to take
it seriously...at all. But director
Peter Farrelly's very aptly titled THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER (his first
film since his Best Picture winning GREEN BOOK)
is indeed based on the very difficult to swallow, but very true story of
John "Chickie" Donahue...
Posted
October 11, 2022
|

|
THE
WOMAN KING (R)
1/2
All
hail Viola Davis!
Gina
Prince-Bythewood's THE WOMAN KING is an ultra
rare historical swords and sandal epic that digs
into 19th Century West Africa and concerns an
all-female warrior squadron.
These warriors in question were the
Agojie that protected the kingdom of Dahomey
during the 1700s through 1800s (the film focuses
squarely on the latter century).
They're one of the very few documented
female armies in recorded history, and something
that even I (with my history degree) was not
altogether familiar with heading into THE WOMAN
KING...
Posted
October 7, 2022
|
|
EMILY
THE CRIMINAL
(R)
Plaza
the hustler
EMILY
THE CRIMINAL serves triple threat duty as a
crime drama, an expose of the haves and the have
nots, and a searing character study of how one
lone woman turns to theft as a way to get an
upper hand her own crushing financial
instability in the world.
To
say that this John Patton Ford written and
directed feature film debut is nihilistic about
many of our modern day economic woes would be a
grand understatement...
Posted
October 7, 2022
|

|
DC
LAND OF THE SUPER PETS
(PG)
Man
of Steel and his Dog of Steel
I've
always enjoyed tantalizing what if scenarios
in super hero comics.
Like,
for example, what if Superman's pet dog from
Krypton actually accompanied him on his
spacecraft as it blasted free from the doomed
planet and grew up with him on his new home on
Earth?
What would having a canine with all of
the powers of the Man of Steel be like...for
the Man of Steel?
The
new computer animated film DC LEAGUE OF
SUPER-PETS dives head first into this more
bizarre, but oddly charming subculture of comic
books...
Posted
October 7, 2022
|

|
THREE
THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING
(R)
Be
careful what you wish for
George
Miller's THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING - his
first film since his multiple Oscar winning MAD
MAX: FURY ROAD - is a wondrously ambitious,
stylistically audacious, and dramatically potent
romantic fantasy that taps into a story
concerning love, myth, and the desire for
connection.
The fact that Miller has made a film with
an extraordinary visual density should come of
no surprise whatsoever - his last MAD MAX sequel
was arguably one of the finest engineered action
blockbusters of all time...
Posted
September 29, 2022
|

|
DO
REVENGE
(PG-13)
|
|
Dirty
working mean girls
Netflix's
new coming of age comedy DO REVENGE is a
surprisingly sly and darkly amusing take on...revenge.
It's the kind of film that really wears
its cinematic influences on its sleeve and isn't
ashamed to show it to viewers.
It's
kind of like MEAN GIRLS meets DIRTY WORK meets
CLUELESS with a dash of HEATHERS thrown in for
good measure...
Posted
September 29,
2022
|

|
PINOCCHIO
(PG)
Wooden
toy turned real boy that's barely in a real film
The
more I thought about Disney’s live action
PINOCCHIO remake after streaming it (it ain't
playing in cinemas, folks!) the more frustrated
I got. The
original 1940 classic - just Disney's second
animated feature ever at that point - remains an
untouchable classic and a masterstroke work that
was then unparalleled for its pioneering
artistry...
Posted
September 20, 2022
|