Finally, what all of you Jake/Holt shippers have been waiting for: The kiss. Except that the kiss isn’t a real kiss, just a decoy kiss, and seriously, there are no Jake/Holt shippers, so forget it. (There actually may be, because everything is someone’s kink, but that’s neither here nor there.) Brooklyn Nine-Nine continues its winning ways by … Continue reading
Remember all those times I reviewed Jessica Jones? Have you been missing those times? Miss no longer! Now I’m reviewing Luke Cage, aka “the best screen thing Marvel has ever put their name on,” which is maybe just a smidge hyperbolic but, well, I don’t care. Luke Cage is great. It also has vaulted Marvel’s Netflix and television … Continue reading
And here we are again, with Andy staring down the barrel of a movie asking himself a fundamental question: “Who the hell is this stupid thing for?” That movie is Deepwater Horizon, the first of two Peter Berg/Mark Wahlberg collaborations in 2016, both of which revolve around real-world tragic events. (The other one is Patriots Day, which … Continue reading
When I put in for a review copy of Free State of Jones, I thought I’d end up just writing a standard review of Gary Ross’ film about the Southern Unionist and freedom fighter Newton Knight. I was completely 100% wrong, thus proving that I am a big dummy. Instead, I wrote about the terrible, horrible, … Continue reading
I can picture a cut of Goat that leaves out the extraneous stuff, the stuff that has net zero impact on the plot, and I can also picture that cut of Goat being much, much better than the cut we got. Oh well. The cut we got is still pretty solid, excess material aside. Goat, by the way, … Continue reading
God it always feels so good to get back to reviewing Brooklyn Nine-Nine once enough time has passed between its previous season’s finale and its incoming season’s premiere. Especially when the incoming season’s premiere is as good as “Coral Palms, Pt. 1,” which is super duper obvious but still totally hilarious and effective all the same. … Continue reading
I’m not quite as in the bag on Chris Kelly’s Other People as some of the film’s more effusive proponents, but you know what? It’s still a solid first movie, and as “sad dudes with cancer friends/family” stories go, it’s light years ahead of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which you all may recall I … Continue reading
It’s an immense tragedy that Marcin Wrona, the brilliant filmmaker responsible for creating Demon, committed suicide around this time in 2015 after showing the picture in Gdynia (and also showing at TIFF); it’s a powerful work, the work of a master in the making, and the third contestant in a three-way-tie for “best horror film of … Continue reading
If you ask most critics and movie nerds, the summer of 2016 is the worst summer for movies of all time, ever. At first blush, you get where they’re coming from, too: There were a lot of shit films this summer, from Suicide Squad to Warcraft to The Legend of Tarzan, and that’s just naming a few out of many. … Continue reading
It’s important to be honest with yourself when you’re a film critic, and sometimes that can be really hard, especially when “being honest” means admitting that you’re not sure if you understand the movie you’re fucking writing about. Case in point: I really genuinely loved Anocha Suwichakornpong’s By the Time It Gets Dark, but damned if I … Continue reading
Complaining about a movie’s dullness or accusing a movie of pretension always makes me feel like a bad movie critic, but hey, when the shoe fits, right? Such is the case with Angela Schanelec’s new film, The Dreamed Path, another one of those “remote TIFF screeners” I was privileged to watch on behalf of The Playlist; … Continue reading
Who needs to go to the Toronto International Film Festival when you can just watch movies in competition remotely? Okay, fair answer: Me. I need to go. But I can’t, or I couldn’t, so instead my very awesome editors over at The Playlist gifted me with screeners, thus allowing me to be “part” of TIFF without the … Continue reading
We all get nostalgic sometimes. When we do, things like the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things happen. Also: This big ol’ joint feature by all of us TV types at Paste Magazine, in which we each wax poetic about our bygone days of TV watching and talk about our favorite TV memories. Those of you who know … Continue reading
Can any of my patrons who have both read M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans and seen Derek Cianfrance’s adaptation tell me whether the movie matches up with the book in its soapy, over-the-top, yet remarkably under-drawn melodrama? I either know people who have read the book or watched the film. I don’t know people who have pulled … Continue reading
Remember five years ago when I reviewed that movie Klown? I’m at it again, reviewing its sequel, Klown Forever, over at The Playlist, much like its stars, Casper Christensen and Frank Hvam, are at it again playing awful, petty, self-destructive alternate versions of themselves. How nice to be reunited with them. Wait: No, not how “nice.” How … Continue reading
I can’t imagine a better, more celebratory way of closing out the first half of The Get Down‘s first season than with these two episodes. I won’t elaborate much more than that, because I wrote over 1,000 words on them for Paste Magazine, but this two-part home stretch feels like the most electric dance party of … Continue reading
Have you seen Dekalog, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski’s groundbreaking 10 hour television film of biblical design? No? Okay, lemme break it down for you: You should see Dekalog, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski’s groundbreaking 10 hour television film of biblical design. 10 hours is a lot of hours for sure, but the film is really ten one hour films as … Continue reading
Elizabeth Wood’s White Girl is not a movie for the prude or the faint of heart. You can tell that by looking at its poster, which features the white girl of the title having sex with her drug dealing boyfriend. (Spoiler alert!) There’s more where that came from (zing!), though, lots more, and much of it … Continue reading
So, this is pretty cool: I got to talk to Craig Robinson, one of my favorite comic actors, about his new movie, Chad Hartigan’s Morris from America, which makes great use of his funnyman qualities while giving him tons of room to maneuver on soulful planes. He isn’t even the star of the film. That would … Continue reading
It’s taken Fede Alvarez all of two movies to establish a name for himself as a filmmaker you’ll either love or loathe. On one hand, you have his 2013 Evil Dead reboot. On the other, you have Don’t Breathe, his latest, a taut, tense, delightfully nasty bit of business that has surprisingly interesting ideas about a certain … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 