Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
“What’s the opposite of a fiancée?” Scarlett Johansson’s Nicole muses, trying to find the right word to describe her soon-to-be ex-husband Charlie (Adam Driver). She doesn’t really want to still call him her husband, because that ship has clearly sailed. But nor is he an ex yet either. There’s a lack of finality to their relationship. Unsigned paperwork. Unfought legal battles. Unclaimed wreckage from what was once a marriage. Read More
The Invisible Man is among my favorite of the Universal Monster classic movies. There’s something about a man’s sanity disappearing alongside his physical body that speaks to something very real and very dangerous. Led by Claude Rains’ sinister turn as the titular villain and James Whales’ boundary-pushing direction, it remains one of the might terrifying things to come out of the 1930s. Which makes it all the most shocking that the property has not been touched for over 90 years. Read More
Pixar took a big risk with Pete Docter’s Inside Out, a movie that explored how human emotions worked. Portraying our outlook on life as an effect of little creatures like Fear, Joy, Anger, and Disgust operating control panels somewhere in the human brain, the conceptual animated feature didn’t feel reigned in by tradition or normal narrative boundaries. Soul looks to follow in the bold footsteps of Inside Out, dealing within the metaphysical in a similar way to Inside Out and from this first peak, looks to be asking similarly bold questions about human existence.
39 years ago, Stanley Kubrick played a game of chicken with Stephen King’s novel “The Shining”, redefining the term “loose adaptation” as he bent the source material to his will. In the process, Kubrick created not just one of the greatest horror films of all time but one of the very best films regardless of genre. Ever an industry maverick, Kubrick swung an axe at King’s IP (“Here’s Johnny” indeed), hacking the story into one more befitting the film medium and his own vision. This meant stripping away the more abject supernatural horrors (though there’s no shortage of rotting bathers and ghost furry lifestylers) and replacing them Jack Torrence’s descent into catacombs of his own inner madness. Read More
Rian Johnson’s star-studded Knives Out is an Agatha Christie-esque whodunnit complete with a colorful cast of characters, a maybe-murder most foul, and an undercooked mystery that astute audience members will certainly figure out well before the intended reveal. As a fun, star-powered slice of old school murder mystery, Knives Out is a welcome bite of throwback entertainment, a high profile anti-blockbuster of sorts: free of CGI, action set pieces, and superheroics of any sort. In that capacity, the good-old-fashion Hollywood whodunnit is a welcome bit of counter-programming to the overly dramatic winter-season awards fare or the sensory-overwhelming, block-busting eye candy that dominates the box office, it’s just a shame that the whole enterprise feels so surface-level and ultimately easy to solve. Read More
As seemingly improbable as Schindler‘s List with an added laugh track or Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom subbing in Hitler Youth for Boy Scouts, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit’s very premise is a bold thought experiment: how do you make modern audiences (notoriously sensitive modern audiences, that is) comfortable laughing at WWII-era Nazism? How do you get them to sympathize with literal Nazi characters? And, maybe most importantly, how do you do all this without getting the endorsement of literal modern-day Nazis? Read More
After preventing Judgement Day, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) has kept herself sharp throughout the years. Hunting the spare Terminator already en-route to various time periods from a defeated SkyNet program( that no longer exists) (it’s less complicated than that seems, I promise)) has become Sarah’s all-consuming purpose since she saved the world, but lost her son John Connor in the process, so many years ago. Her tinfoil hat lifestyle is thrown its biggest challenge in decades when two denuded future beings arrive in shimmering blue balls; one an enhanced human named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), the other a highly advanced Terminator, a Legion Rev-9 series played by Gabriel Luna. Read More
Every once in a while a movie comes along and scrambles the noggin in just the best way possible. This week, that movie was Greener Grass, an absurdist comedy/satire that takes aim at suburbia and polite society in cruelly hilarious fashion. At the front of it all, and laboring behind the scenes, are Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, the stars of the film who also wrote, directed, and executive produced the film. Greener Grass is entirely their baby and unlike protagonist Jill early on in the film, they weren’t going to give that away. Read More
What could have and should have been a lean mean socially-relevant cop thriller turns to indulgent putty in the hands of director Deon Taylor (The Intruder, Meet the Blacks.) Black and Blue hangs on but a single idea, one that James Moses Black’s Officer Brown conveys to his fellow pigmented protagonist Alicia West (Naomie Harris) early on in the film, “You’re not black anymore. You’re blue.” Meaning, the rookie cop should now identify as police, not African-American, because that is how the world sees her now. In the world Taylor creates, black and blue don’t mix. Read More
It should come as a surprise to no one that Joker, a film which has broken the record for biggest R-rated film ever, and has smashed plenty of other records along the way, has officially been greenlit for a sequel. The Joaquin Phoenix-starring supervillain origin story enjoyed a celebrated festival run, winning the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. and further praise along its path to wider cineplexes. The reputation of the Todd Phillips’ film began to proceed itself, with Joker becoming a central topic of cultural conversation and somewhat critically divisive, even before its release. Ultimately, Joker became an unmitigated mega-hit for DC and Warner Brothers (already well on its way to a crisp $900 million total tally), with fan fervor matching its box office ferocity. Read More