Alternative tagline for this movie’s poster: “U Look Like A Monkey / And U Die Like 1 2.” You can have that for free. Wait, no: Royalties. Continue reading
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Filed under Movie Reviews …
Review: Under the Eiffel Tower, 2019, dir. Archie Borders
Matt Walsh as a leading man in a rom-com? It’s an idea so crazy it might just work, except that the movie in question only barely gets there with plot and story. Continue reading
“Peter Jackson’s WWI Doc ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ Is A Marvel On Every Level”
It took Peter Jackson over a decade, but he finally made a movie to match, and even outclass, his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy – a documentary about World War I, made as only a guy like Jackson could make it. Continue reading
Review: Capernaum, 2019, dir. Nadine Labaki
A film about a starving boy scrapping by to survive in Beirut isn’t the kind of film anyone’s happy to criticize. On the flip side, if you make that movie and you don’t want to be criticized, make a better movie. Continue reading
Review: The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, 2019, dir. Henry Dunham
Seven men. Six innocent. One guilty. One location. One night to sort it all out. One really long movie title. But hey, it gets the point across! Continue reading
Review: Buffalo Boys, 2019, dir. Mike Wiluan
Of buffaloes, and boys, and western / martial arts revenge tropes. Also they have a grenade launcher. Take it from me, this one’s pretty wild. Continue reading
“Christian Bale’s Chubby Dick Cheney Impersonation Is the Only Interesting Thing About Vice”
I tried, guys. I promise you I tried. Oh, how I tried to give Vice, the new Adam McKay movie, a fair shake; tried not to read the movie as “The Big Short, but wicked extra, and also obnoxious.” But I couldn’t, because that’s exactly what it is, times ten, and don’t let any clever types try … Continue reading
Review: Aquaman, 2018, dir. James Wan
Preamble: Man, the DCEU movies are fucking bad. (Excepting Wonder Woman, which is good until it’s bad.) …okay, got that out of the way. Aquaman kinda rocks. Like Wonder Woman, Aquaman cradles its share of flaws and bad creative decisions, most of them involving the totally great Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who deserves to be a big huge movie star and … Continue reading
Review: Cold War, 2018, dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
I did, four years ago, write a review of Pawel Pawlikowski’s post-war masterpiece Ida, but I’m not certain it’s still online or if I ever even shared it on this website; that’s too bad, because it’d be nice to revisit my words for context for Cold War, Pawlikowski’s new film, which I imagine years from now I’ll also … Continue reading
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Shows That Anyone Can Be Spider-Man”
True story: On first hearing of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I wrote it off and put it out of my memory, thinking, “this sounds like a pretty naked excuse to put a bunch of different Spider-Man variations into a single movie for the purpose of moving lots of ancillary product, and also most Marvel movies aren’t … Continue reading
Review: Clara’s Ghost, 2018, dir. Bridey Elliott
I suspect, by now, that a number of those of you reading my work and my Twitter feed are just about sick of hearing me complain about Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Well…I’m going to complain about it a couple times more, though in this instance, we’re talking less about a complaint than a comparison. If you’re going to make … Continue reading
Review: Shoplifters, 2018, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Two Hirokazu Kore-eda movies! In one year! What a gift to all of humanity, Shoplifters in particular, this humane but knotty and deeply complicated movie; good though The Third Murder may be, it simply isn’t Shoplifters, the best “family is what you make it” movie of 2018 (and “family is what you make it” is indeed a surprising sub-theme … Continue reading
“Creed II Review: It’s An Even Better Version Of Rocky IV”
I liked Creed. I have Feelings™ about Rocky IV. It stands to reason that I’d feel at least minor trepidation about a Creed movie that addresses the events of Rocky IV, even though down the line the Creed chapters in the Rocky franchise would need to address Rocky IV out of continuity necessity. So consider it a Thanksgiving miracle that Creed II, which opens today, the … Continue reading
“The New Robin Hood Steals From Batman Begins And Gives Back In Poorer Form”
I’m increasingly convinced that superheroes will be the death of pop culture, and that one day, not too many days away from this day we’re on right now, all will be superheroes. Superhero movies and superhero TV series’ are just the beginning. Superhero music. (Probably already a thing.) Superhero diet plans. (Same.) Superhero high fashion. Superhero … Continue reading
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Coen Brothers’ New Netflix Movie, Is What TV Wishes It Could Be”
A snafu in my latest for Men’s Health, a snag, let’s say, in my multi-point praise for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and my case against peak TV: Apparently, per cast member Zoe Kazan, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was never conceived as a TV series, despite months of reporting that the Coen brothers “retooled” the series as … Continue reading
Review: Apostle, 2018, dir. Gareth Evans
Well, hey, look at that, a new Gareth Evans movie. I’ve been waiting on more Evans since 2014’s The Raid 2: Berandal, a high point in action filmmaking (if a little bit bloated, but the bloat is all good bloat); he has a way about the camera that ensures the camera is as involved in what … Continue reading
Review: Bisbee ’17, 2018, dir. Robert Greene
Upfront: I dug Kate Plays Christine, documentary filmmaker Robert Greene’s last movie, but I am floored, still, by Bisbee ’17, his latest, and I saw it over two weeks ago. Maybe that makes me…I don’t know, simple? I think Kate Plays Christine hangs around the edges of fast comprehension. It’s elusive. I like an elusive film, and I’m … Continue reading
“Robert Redford’s Last Role Is A Dazzling Film With A Simple Message: Do What Makes You Happy”
Minor note about The Old Man & the Gun: As of now, David Lowery is 2 for 4 with me, having won me over with Pete’s Dragon and lost me on both Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and A Ghost Story*. The Old Man & the Gun reads like a snow globe, a capsule containing every sort of movie Lowery grew … Continue reading
