“‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’ Should Have Been the Future of Blockbusters”

I know, I know: I’ve already made this argument. Well, it’s 5 years later, blockbusters are finally starting to look like they’re gonna turn around, and I’m making this argument again. Continue reading →

“2018 Oscars Preview: Who Will Win and Who Should Win”

Better late than never, I guess, except when it comes to the Oscars. Short version, since I don’t have much to say about the ceremony (as I did not watch): None of the movies or performances I wanted to win actually won. I’m okay. None of that comes as a surprise to me. This is … Continue reading →

Review: Hostiles, 2017, dir. Scott Cooper

Poor Scott Cooper. This guy, he just can’t make a movie I’m capable of tolerating. I bet he’s pretty bummed. I hated Out of the Furnace; I also hated Black Mass, a movie I took personally as a Bostonian. (Seriously, someone make a fucking movie about Boston that doesn’t hinge on bad accents for once, please.) Cut … Continue reading →

Review: The Polka King, 2017, dir. Maya Forbes

I’m happy enough to sneak a terrible-on-purpose play on Shakespeare into my review of Maya Forbes’ very good The Polka King that I don’t mind my reference to Phanuel being cut from the final copy. Take that bad with the good, or maybe in this case the bad with the very bad. Whatever. I don’t know. … Continue reading →

Review: In the Fade, 2017, dir. Fatih Akin

Who loves Nazis? Nobody. Except maybe other Nazis. That’s sort of the thrust of In the Fade, or part of its thrust: Polite society has no use for Nazis, but impolite people is okay with Nazis, and most of all, other Nazis are okay with other Nazis. Fatih Akin’s film is about a woman, played by … Continue reading →

In 2017’s Movies, Poisonous Mushrooms Were an Unlikely Symbol of Female Liberation

Well, I did it: I got an article up on Vulture. Maybe it’ll be the only one I do, though I really fucking hope not. If so, hey, I have that byline, and that’s another checkmark on my list of goals for 2017 (and just in the nick of time, which is generally how I … Continue reading →

Andy’s Best Things, 2017 Edition

As usual, as I do each year (each year, at least, since first creating this blog), and as you expect me to do, I have compiled my top ten list for 2017. Also as usual, that list includes five honorable mentions. Not at all as usual, I’ve generously expanded this annual enterprise to include two of … Continue reading →

Paste Magazine’s 20 Best Movie Performances of 2017

I’m a Daniel Day-Lewis partisan, I guess, because I can’t accept the idea that any actor in any movie in 2017 performs better than he does in Phantom Thread, but I can’t complain about Saoirse Ronan taking the top spot for her work in Lady Bird.  …oh, right, sorry, forgot to start this off by saying that … Continue reading →

Review: Pitch Perfect 3, 2017, dir. Trish Sie

The Pitch Perfect series is, for the most part, delightful; it’s a cliché to say that the first movie in a trilogy is the best, but Pitch Perfect really is better than Pitch Perfect 2, which mostly entertains with more bumps in the road plus a handful of unnecessary detours. So I’m not surprised that Pitch Perfect 3 turned … Continue reading →

The Playlist’s Most Underrated & Overrated Films Of 2017

People will probably give me degrees of flak and guff and shit for criticizing Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a) at all, and b) specifically in context with its perspectives on American race relations. Those people are wrong. This movie has as strong a grasp on racism in America as Ted Crockett has on America’s swearing in … Continue reading →

The Reinvention of Luke Skywalker

I dawdled a bit posting this piece I wrote about Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Luke Skywalker, mostly* because I’m lazy. (*Entirely because I’m lazy.) But that shouldn’t give you reason to think the piece isn’t important to me. It’s actually one of the most important things I’ve written all year in the sense that … Continue reading →

Review: The Greatest Showman, 2017, dir. Michael Gracey

I liked the musical numbers in The Greatest Showman. I liked them a lot! Like all good musical numbers, they help facilitate storytelling; they’re also bright, beautifully orchestrated, utterly joyful, and so compelling that I found myself tapping my feet through most of them. (The rest are not feet-tapping songs, which is to say that they … Continue reading →

‘The Shape of Water’ Is Wonder and Nostalgia Done Right

For my second piece about one of my top three favorite movies of the year, being Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant The Shape of Water, I took to the pages of The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog to talk about the element of his work that I find so compelling: His unfailing sense of wonder and awe. No … Continue reading →

Review: Phantom Thread, 2017, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

I put down a thousand plus words about the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Phantom Thread, in my review for The Playlist; I put down a couple hundred more in a “best of the year” blurb I put together for the same site; I will be putting down even more hundreds of words for a piece I’m … Continue reading →

Review: The Shape of Water, 2017, dir. Guillermo del Toro

Well, you can probably guess how this intro blurb is going to go. I can’t help it. Guillermo del Toro’s movies speak to me. His grasp on the language of cinema is such that his movies always hit me right in my brain-spot. (Tangential truth: I pity people who don’t vibe with his work. They’re … Continue reading →

Review: Roman J. Israel, Esq., 2017, dir. Dan Gilroy

I liked Nightcrawler so much that I’m bummed I couldn’t like Roman J. Israel, Esq. more; I like Dan Gilroy, I like Denzel Washington, I like Carmen Ejogo, and I like Colin Farrell. (In case you don’t already know, I also like social activism and social justice.) This movie should have been a slam dunk for me. … Continue reading →

Why ‘Coco’ Feels Like an Act of Defiance

  There is a part of me that loves Coco, the new Pixar film, for Coco, and a part of me that loves it for essentially being a big ol’ “eff you” to our president and his openly xenophobic, anti-immigrant ideology, which isn’t really an “ideology,” because let’s face it, Donald is not an ideological kind of … Continue reading →

Review: Mr. Roosevelt, 2017, dir. Noël Wells

I’m sort of tired of comedies that adopt the simple method of point-and-shoot – see The Big Sick – but I can forgive them for mere adequacy of craftsmanship so long as the writing is both a) good, and b) doesn’t overstay its welcome. In the case of Mr. Roosevelt, I get the sense that the film’s … Continue reading →

Does ‘Valerian’ Deserve a Second Act?

Simple answer to the question posed by the title of my latest piece at The Hollywood Reporter: Yes. Yes it does. Luc Besson’s latest and underloved summer CGI extravaganza, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, has its flaws, most of them being tied to Dane DeHaan’s ill fit as the cocky action hero type, … Continue reading →

Review: The Breadwinner, 2017, dir. Nora Twomey

I could do with a new Cartoon Saloon film every couple of years or so, ideally more often than that, but it’s animation, what are you gonna do; besides, the movies this studio knocks out are always worth the wait. Back in 2014, I reviewed Song of the Sea. This year, I reviewed The Breadwinner, a very … Continue reading →