“Able to Do Anything Post-MCU, Robert Downey Jr. Chooses ‘Dolittle'”

What’s a man do to when he has all the money in the world plus a rehabilitated image as Marvel’s greatest hero? He does little. Very, very little. Continue reading →

Review: The Lego Batman Movie, 2017 dir. Chris McKay

I guess I’m not surprised, per se, that I enjoyed The Lego Batman Movie as much as I did; I liked The Lego Movie quite a lot, after all, and found Will Arnett’s Batman riff utterly hilarious. When The Lego Batman Movie was first announced, though, I wondered whether that riff could sustain a whole movie, and there it … Continue reading →

Review: Kubo and the Two Strings, 2016, dir. Travis Knight

Laika can do no wrong. Mostly. I didn’t love ParaNorman, but that’s a minor sin made up of a handful of minor grievances, and besides, four years on, I might love it if I revisited it. The real proof of Laika’s excellence is that they haven’t yet made a really bad film, the repugnant, inexcusable kind … Continue reading →

Review: Hail, Caesar!, 2016, dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

Let’s get one thing outta the way: Hail, Caesar! is minor Coen brothers. It is not No Country For Old Men, though if we are using that as the yardstick separate “minor” Coens from “major” Coens, then nearly every film they have made since 2007 falls into the former category. You can instead lump Hail, Caesar! in with A Serious … Continue reading →

Go, See, Talk! Review: Wrath of the Titans, 2012, Jonathan Liebesman

For fans of FX spectacles, monster mashes, Roman mythology, and the God of War video game series, you’re in luck– the sequel to 2010’s Clash of the Titans remake hits theaters today. While I don’t think it’s a total loss,  I found Wrath of the Titans to be lacking in a firm direction, never really fitting into a … Continue reading →

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt. 2, 2011, dir. David Yates

Unsurprisingly, the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is one massive climax from start to finish. What else did anyone expect? Part one heroically bit the bullet and allowed itself to bear the weight of the novel’s filler, martyr-like, so that part two could act like an unrelenting, two-hour-and-change action scene in … Continue reading →

2011 Rising: My Films to Watch (pt.1)

For me, 2010’s in the bag, but it’s not totally wrapped up until I take the time to ruminate over the upcoming slate of movies in 2011 that excite me, discourage me, intrigue me, or puzzle/offend me (and, of course, also post the rest of my top ten, which is, I promise, coming around the … Continue reading →

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (pt.1), 2010, dir. David Yates

The end has come, but not really so much at all, no. Seeing the first half of the two-part finale to the Harry Potter saga, I can fully appreciate the artistic need to break the book apart; even more, I can better admire J.K. Rowling’s gargantuan, overstuffed seventh novel and the scope of both the … Continue reading →