There's a moment late in Damien Chazelle's new film, Babylon, that offers what feels like the one instance of pure honesty in the entire project. Jack Conrad, played by Brad Pitt, has gone from being the biggest star in Hollywood to yesterday's news during the transition from silent pictures to talkies. After two flops in … Continue reading Cocaine’s a Hell of a Drug – Babylon
Earlier this year, Alex Garland's Men gave audiences a thoughtful, layered, and visionary approach to the concept of toxic masculinity, creating a story that blurred the lines of horror, fantasy, and reality, led by absolutely deft performances from Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear. It wasn't perfect, but it was a raw, visceral depiction of how … Continue reading Significantly Less Pleasantville – Don’t Worry Darling
I confess I didn't have high expectations for DC League of Super-Pets. In fact, I included it in this month's edition of "TFINYW" for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that the Secret Life of Pets movies kind of soured me on the idea of animated movies about domesticated … Continue reading The Rock Rolls Over – DC League of Super-Pets
It's a fine line that filmmakers have to walk when they're catering to a specific audience. Ideally, you want to create something that will not only satisfy that core group, but also have a wider appeal to draw in new fans. A lot of multimedia franchises pull off this gambit with varying degrees of success, … Continue reading Fan Service: The Movie – Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Tonight's the big night. The Academy Awards are mere hours away! But before we walk down our proverbial red carpet, there's one more set of hardware to hand out. Last night, the indies took center stage, with the 35th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards. Full results plus a video of Aubrey Plaza's opening monologue are … Continue reading One More to Go – Independent Spirit Awards Results!
One of the more tragic things that's happened in recent cinema history is the decline of Clint Eastwood. One of the greatest actors and filmmakers of all time has sadly receded into a parody of himself, figuratively becoming the old man who yells at kids to get off his lawn after literally playing that figure … Continue reading There is a Bomb at Your Local Cinema; It Lasts 129 Minutes – Richard Jewell
The Year of Our Ford 2019 is halfway complete, and so far the tally for me is 48 movies, one off the pace I had set by this point last year. Unlike last year, however, 2019 has been a decided step back in terms of cinema quality. There aren't too many great films, and most … Continue reading The 2nd Annual Oscs – Celebrating the Best (and Worst) of 2019 so far!
As I've made abundantly clear on this blog over the past year-plus, I am not in favor of rebooting or remaking established movie franchises with gender-swapped leads in general, mostly because there's rarely any reason for it beyond, "Hey, let's do it with LADIES this time!" In most cases the entire gimmick is little more … Continue reading P-A-R-T-Why? ‘Cause I GOTTA! – Booksmart
I Actually Paid To See This 