For your consideration: A whole heapin’ helpin’ of real good performances in real good movies. My picks here: Brady Jandreau, Joaquin Phoenix, Kiki Layne & Stefan James, and Ben Foster & Thomasin McKenzie. Maybe the last two feel like cheats, and in a way they are. But in a totally different way they’re not, because … Continue reading
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
Michael B. Jordan, right? What an actor. What a fire starter, too. The guy loves burning shit. It’s almost his bread and butter, at least in 2018, where his two biggest roles play literally and metaphorically with fire (and sometimes both). See: Black Panther and Fahrenheit 451. (Actually see Black Panther, too. Don’t just consider it as evidence. … Continue reading
Fair warning: I really didn’t want to write this piece, and I’m doing it out of misguided obligation. Maybe I’m whining, but cut me some slack; I’ve already written about the #OscarsSoWhite fracas, and also contributed a handful of yadda yaddas to Paste Magazine’s annual Oscar preview (though I spend most of my yaddas turning my nose up at the … Continue reading
Well, we did it: we predicted the Oscars. Or, more specifically, we made our Oscar predictions. I have my own personal mumblings about the ceremony coming later today, but if you want to see what the gang at Paste Magazine’s Movies section thinks is going to go down this Sunday, you’d best hightail it on … Continue reading
“Another year, another slate of movie releases in the history books, and with it a bevy of new characters gracing the big screen. Just like making the movies themselves, though, making a truly memorable character is a major challenge. You have to get them right on the page before you can cast them, for one … Continue reading
“There’s an alternate timeline in which Creed is a superfluous waste of nostalgia. In that universe, Warner Bros. gave the reins to a filmmaker other than Ryan Coogler, the young Oakland-born director who stunned viewers in 2013 with Fruitvale Station, a bio-drama about the death of Oscar Grant. Maybe Coogler is the last person anyone … Continue reading
“If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” When W.E. Hickson popularized this crusty old Thomas Palmer aphorism back in the 1800’s, he couldn’t have known that one day, one of America’s most high profile movie studios would take the phrase to heart with not one, not two, but three attempts at building a franchise … Continue reading
Chronicle director Josh Trank deserves unquestioned accolades if only for how deftly he weaves together two tired ideas– found footage narratives and superhero origin stories– and ends up with something fresh and engaging. Frankly, he cheats at both (though more at the former than the latter), but when your primary cast members can levitate the camera … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 