I’ll say it plainly: Strip away the hacking subplot, the dark web subplot, the pining nice guy best friend subplot, and the mom subplot from Nerve, and you’d end up with a better than pretty good movie. Add in real, visceral consequences, and you’d have an even better movie than that. Nerve is just too free of … Continue reading
In case it isn’t obvious, I really liked Don’t Think Twice, a movie that, much like anything Mike Birbiglia does, you will enjoy or not depending on how much mileage you get out of his style. There’s a shaggy, aw-shucks, relaxed vibe to what he does and to who he is that suits his approach to … Continue reading
My latest for The Playlist: Phantom Boy, Alain Gagnol & Jean-Loup Felicioli’s follow-up to the excellent A Cat in Paris. (FYI: If you haven’t seen that one, it’s on Netflix Instant.) Phantom Boy lets the duo continue indulging their love of noir to an extent, but mostly the movie is all about superheroes and comic book movies. It’s an … Continue reading
I got to talk with Taika Waititi, director of the excellent Hunt for the Wilderpeople, for Paste Magazine last month; the interview is up, and it would just be keen if you all read it. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is wonderful (hence why it is on my “favorites of the year to date” list), and Taika is … Continue reading
I love Stephen Chow, and have since Shaolin Soccer helped boost his visibility and his reputation on an international scale. (Maybe that’s how you first got to know Chow as a director and as an actor, too, though if you have not already, I strongly suggest going back through his pre-Soccer filmography, as it is loaded … Continue reading
…man, even thinking of an appropriate intro blurb for linking my review of The Secret Life of Pets feels like as much a chore as writing the review itself. What a nothing of a movie. It isn’t terrible. It isn’t good. It is awkward and oddly structured, and you can see where Chris Renaud and Yarrow … Continue reading
It is July. We have already celebrated our nation’s independence. We have launched our fireworks into the night sky and gorged to the point of shame spiraling, our self-loathing winding and weaving through our subconsciousness as surely as wisps of smoke curl in the wake of celebratory ordnance. It is six months until the time … Continue reading
…annnnnd here’s “part two” of my attempt at getting to the core of why The Legend of Tarzan is such a failure and such an embarrassment as a modern studio blockbuster. How do you make a racist novel written in bygone times un-racist? Can you? Is it worth the effort to try? And is trying in and of … Continue reading
I sure have written a lot of words about WB’s The Legend of Tarzan considering how much I hate it. But then, maybe “hate” is a strong word. Maybe it’s the wrong word. The Legend of Tarzan isn’t a good movie by any stretch of the means, but I think I have to classify my response to it as … Continue reading
To know the work of Warren Oates is to love Warren Oates. Odds are you probably do know Oates’ work, too, even if you don’t realize it. Oates nailed down roughly 50 roles over the course of his too-short career, which spanned from 1959 to 1982; he kept busy, putting a particular emphasis on Westerns … Continue reading
I don’t like to have beef with other critics, but when a critic writes something, anything, whatever, that I find to be grossly inept, or offensive, or cruel, or just plain old dumb, I tend to get my hackles up. Such is the tale of my review of Roger Ross Williams’ Life, Animated, a documentary about … Continue reading
Here’s the deal: I worked a really, really, really long time on this list, and so did the people I worked on it with, and you just know by the title what the whole thing is all about. I’m not going to slow walk you through it. Just take this magical link to Paste Magazine to scope … Continue reading
You can probably guess, based on the header, that Fantastic Planet is my favorite release from The Criterion Collection’s June slate, but it’s so hard to choose: Everything this month is great, though my compadres at Paste Magazine and I were only able to get through four of them. Just four! That’s a fraction of the slate’s … Continue reading
Nuts!, documentary filmmaker Penny Lane’s latest venture, is the kind of movie that needs to be seen to be believed. People say that about a lot of movies, or a lot of television shows, or performances, or whatever, and in most cases they’re just saying it to say it. In the case of Nuts!, it’s 100% … Continue reading
We always knew they’d be back indeed. We just didn’t know that they would be back in a movie this astoundingly bad. Look, I put down over twelve hundred words in digital ink to tear this stupid fucking thing a new one; I’ve earned my keep. I don’t have to preamble. The article I wrote … Continue reading
When you’re a master, you can get away with making “minor” movies because your status turns “minor” movies into “major” movies. Three isn’t the best To we’ve gotten in the last few years – that would be 2013’s stunning Drug War – but it’s still outstanding, an eighty or so minute masterclass in what a seasoned director … Continue reading
Try fitting all of that text into your mouth at once. You can’t! It’s a big, beefy title directed by two guys. That’s a lot of verbiage. But what Raiders!: The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made lacks in succinctness it makes up for with compelling storytelling. Messy, compelling storytelling, sure, but storytelling that’s no … Continue reading
Maybe the fact that this here image of Full Court: The Spencer Haywood Story‘s poster is the best I could find tells you all you need to know about the film’s level of perceived respectability. This is a small doc with a narrow angle, and which very clearly loves its subject – enough, at least, to … Continue reading
You know what? Whatever. I liked Central Intelligence. I came down hard on it because it could stand improvement on a molecular level, and a few tweaks might have elevated it to greatness; it’s a movie with an identity crisis, wherein it cannot decide if it is a serious action comedy (and therefore understands how spy … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 