It's been an oddly good year for R-rated comedies featuring middle-aged all-star casts acting like children. Game Night is the best so far, and Blockers won me over to a certain degree. Now we have Tag, a goofball romp based on a Wall Street Journal article from 2013 about a group of childhood friends who keep themselves in … Continue reading You’re It! And By “It,” I Mean, Surprisingly Entertaining – Tag
I've been a fan of Brad Bird ever since his days on The Simpsons, where he directed some classic episodes, including "Krusty Gets Busted," the first in the longstanding rivalry between Bart and Sideshow Bob. He was also a consultant on The Critic, the show that inspired this very column. He's had a brilliant career, to the … Continue reading A Sequel Worthy of the Wait – Incredibles 2
There are shades of two of my all-time favorite movies on display in the father/daughter musical dramedy, Hearts Beat Loud, directed by relative newcomer Brett Haley and starring Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons (Diggy from Dope). The first is High Fidelity, where John Cusack plays a wonderfully cynical record store owner who must discard his youthful flaws in … Continue reading Your Father’s Day Gift is Some Schmaltz and a Nice Song – Hearts Beat Loud
There's an odd dichotomy these days when it comes to horror films. With very few notable exceptions like Get Out or A Quiet Place, audiences and critics tend to have almost polar opposite reactions to modern horror. If audiences like it, critics hate it, and vice versa. So too is the case with Hereditary, written and directed by … Continue reading Sound, Fury, and Gory Shit, Still Signifying Nothing – Hereditary
A few years ago, Morgan Neville won an Academy Award for 20 Feet From Stardom, a soulful, uplifting documentary about background singers, people we literally hear every day, but who never grabbed the spotlight for themselves, for any number of reasons. Seeing Darlene Love sing "His Eye is On the Sparrow" as Neville and the producers … Continue reading I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying, Shut Up! – Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Of the major movies released this past weekend, only one ended up with that dreaded splat on Rotten Tomatoes, and even then, just barely, at 59%. So before I take a look at the critical darlings of the weekend, I figured I'd give a little bit of attention to Hotel Artemis, an ambitious siege thriller that … Continue reading A Pastiche Siege That Aims to Please – Hotel Artemis
Today marks the release of the A-list loaded, highly marketed heist comedy, Ocean's 8, which I have already made clear that I will not see without a compelling reason, despite my girlfriend's pleas, because it comes off to me as a lazy spinoff of a remake that nobody asked for, and seems like just another excuse … Continue reading The Only Heist Movie You Should See This Weekend – American Animals
Written and directed by Paul Schrader (who helmed films like American Gigolo, as well as co-writing Martin Scorsese classics like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), the satirical religious drama First Reformed offers an intriguing take on the hypocrisies of the world through the lens of faith. It asks deep, insightful questions about what the role of clergy should be in … Continue reading Ethan Hawke Pays for the Sins of the Holy Father – First Reformed
Right away I almost feel that I have to dock this film half a letter grade because of its release date. We literally had May the Fourth on a Friday this year, and this movie was held for another three weeks. Yes, May 25th is the actual anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars, … Continue reading When We Were Less Scruffy-Looking Nerf-Herders – Solo: A Star Wars Story
Like I said in my last review, there are a ton of single-subject biographical documentaries so far this year, but this one is the best yet. Some 50 years on from 2001: A Space Odyssey, director Tony Zierra brings us Filmworker, about the magnificent journey of Leon Vitali, the man behind the curtain of Stanley Kubrick's mystique … Continue reading Below the Line and Above it All – Filmworker
I Actually Paid To See This 