Kafkatesque ‘MEN’ Favors Allegory, Mood Over Plot

May 17, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Alex Garland, Horror, Jessie Buckley, Men, Paapa Essiedu, Rory Kinnear 1 Comment

Men? Meh.

If we feel pain, are we doomed to it? Writer-director Alex Garland’s latest film, Men, is plagued by this one idea: the cyclical, unwavering nature of pain and abuse. Jessie Buckley is Harper, a woman suffering. After a traumatic incident involving her former husband (Paapa Essiedu), Harper retreats to the English countryside to find some quiet away from the city and the life she shared with her ex. While she intends to give herself space for emotional healing, Harper instead finds an intrusive, hellish male community seemingly dead-set on breaking her down further. Events turns more weird, then utterly hellish. Read More

When Sam Raimi Lets Loose, ‘DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS’ Is Pure Dark Magic. Otherwise, Meh.

May 3, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Benedict Cumberbatch, Benedict Wong, Bruce Campbell, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Elizabeth Olsen, Kevin Feige, Marvel, MCU, Rachel McAdams, Sam Raimi, Xochitl Gomez 1 Comment

Not Quite What the Doctor Ordered

The multitude of successes and failures of the larger MCU brand is put on full display with its most recent entry, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The film directed by Spider-Man and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi, more than any other Marvel effort to date, underscores issues of creative overlording (Kevin Feige, master of the box office, checking in) that has long plagued the comic book production house. The push and pull between actual directorial style and ownership of said style and the larger corporatized Marvel Brand has never been so readily apparent in the finished product, resulting in one of Marvel’s most split-identity entries to date. One that also houses some of its most daring and dazzling segments across all of its 28 films and six Disney+ TV events. Read More

‘THE NORTHMAN’, A Life of Death

April 14, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Björk, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, Nicole Kidman, Reviews, Robert Eggers, The Northman 1 Comment

Heavy Metal 895

Robert Eggers finds the language of a movie before anything else. Drawing up the screenplay for The Witch, Eggers studied journals, diaries, and anything from the early days of American settlers that he could get his hands on. Through their particularly dated parlance, he crafted a haunting vision of religious fervor gone amuck in a haunted New England wood. For his sophomore feature, The Lighthouse, Eggers looked to the vernacular of folklore, myths, and seamen, spinning spittle-infused soliloquies about mariner curses on the 1890s high seas. His salty dialogue matched perfectly with Willem Dafoe’s wide-eyed delivery. With The Northman, Eggers pairs with Icelandic poet Sjón to find the language of the 9th century Nordic people. And their language is violence. Read More

Pointless ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE’ Spends Last Shred of Goodwill on Political Allegory

April 5, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, David Yates, Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, J.K. Rowlings, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Reviews 1 Comment

Avada Kedavra Beasts Franchise!

Grindewald runs for public office, the Dumbledore family tree expands, and Magizoologist Newt Scamander dances with dungeon scorpions in the absolutely pointless, painfully-dull, franchise-killing Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Series mainstay Katherine Waterston had the good sense to sit this one out and I wish I had as well. Read More

SXSW ’22: Mind-Blowing ‘EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE’ Is the Multiverse of Madness We Deserve

March 12, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheiner, Everything Everywhere All At Once, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, SXSW, SXSW 2022 3 Comments

Everything Everywhere All At Once truly is the multiverse of madness that we deserve. Hilarious, utterly singular, and weirdly profound, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheiner (aka “The Daniels”) have cooked up something wholly original with their martial-arts multiversal science-fiction story about a Chinese family that owns a laundry mat. A genius-level explosion of creativity that blends Wuxia sci-fi with the vast endlessness that is literally the spectrum of onscreen possibility, there’s is a film that borders on the insane and is never anything less than wowing. To say I had a smile plastered on my face the entire time would be to overlook that fact that everyone around me did as well. Read More

Soulless Video Game Adaptation ‘UNCHARTED’ A Cash Grab With Zero Charm

February 17, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Antonio Banderas, Mark Wahlberg, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ruben Fleischer, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Tom Holland, Uncharted 1 Comment

A black hole of charm, Sony’s Uncharted is the opposite of inspired. Everything about this lazy, expensive, haphazard adaptation of the popular Playstation exclusive reeks of assembly-line blockbuster manufacturing. For a wannabe franchise-launching starting block, one that clocks in with an aggressive $120 million dollar budget, Uncharted feels little more than a hack pastiche of adventure movie tropes, airlifted in from better treasure hunter films and spackled with a coat of snide Mark Wahlberg one-liners. It’s painful by virtue of just how adamantly risk-averse and paint-by-numbers just about everything on screen ends up being. Read More

Handsome, Dull ‘DEATH ON THE NILE’ Paddles Towards Predictability

February 10, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Agatha Christie, Annette Bening, Armie Hammer, Death on the Nile, Emma Mackey, Gal Gadot, Kenneth Branagh, Letita Wright, Michael Green, Reviews, Russel Brand, Sophie Okonedo, Tom Bateman 1 Comment

Death on the Nile begins with the origin story of Hercule Poirot’s (Kenneth Branagh) ridiculous mustache. His face was half-blown off in WWI you see, this facial deformity informing his older self’s reclusive and fussy nature. The overly coiffed, quadruple-pronged mustache was a cover up all along. A way to throw people off the scent of his great trauma and deep-seated pain. The detective, it seems, is indeed human after all. Surmising why the world-famous detective became who he is proves the best material in this sequel to 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, a murder mystery that is otherwise haunted by an almost total lack of mystery. Read More

‘MOONFALL’ A Crash Course on Big Dumb Havoc Wreaking

February 3, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Charlie Plummer, Chris Sandiford, Halle Berry, John Bradley, Kelly Reilly, Michael Pena, Moonfall, Out in Theaters, Patrick Wilson, Review, Reviews, Roland Emmerich Leave a comment

The master of disaster is back to ruin the world again with Moonfall, a shamelessly bonkers sci-fi disaster movie where the moon is suddenly on a collision course with earth. A select few suspect aliens are involved. Following a string of disappointments, director Roland Emmerich’s latest is a bit of a return to form, or at least whatever form best suits Emmerich. Moonfall is an uncompromisingly ridiculous disaster epic where the scale is as massive as the plot-holes and the human element is consistently overshadowed by destruction special effects. It’s big, it’s loud, it’s dumb, and by the time the whole thing takes shape, it’s almost too much fun to deny its simple pleasures. Almost. Read More

‘JACKASS FOREVER’: A Confederacy of Dunces

February 2, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Chris Pontius, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey, Eric André, Jackass Forever, Jasper Dolphin, Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville, Machine Gun Kelly, Preston Lacy, Reviews, Sean McInerney, Steve-O, Wee-Man Leave a comment

It’s a remarkable feat that all these years later, MTV’s original confederacy of dunces still can withstand this level of pain. Jackass Forever, as directed by longtime ringmaster Jeff Tremaine, forgoes any suggestion of maturity and sticks with the simple premise of dick-punching, bone-shattering, concussion-friendly gags that these cackling hyena’s den of pranksters have long delivered for the juvenile, puerile, infantile amongst us. It’s just as recklessly funny as it’s always been. Read More

SUNDANCE ’22: Carla Juri Shines in Understated Romance ‘BLOOD’

January 24, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged blood, Bradley Rust Gray, Carla Juri, Reviews, Sundance, Sundance 2022, Takashi Ueno Leave a comment

Following the death of her husband, photographer Chloe (Carla Juri) moves to Japan to try to start anew in blood. She’s welcome by their jovial old friend and traveling musician Toshi (Takashi Ueno) as well as the beguiling mysteries that every new city holds. As Chloe wanders the city streets and inviting countryside with her camera, she makes new acquaintances, including a man whose wife is battling cancer, a kind-hearted kindred spirit florist, and a dance choreographer. But none quite see her as fully as Toshi does. As a yearning and perhaps forbidden attraction takes root, the widowed Chloe must contend with allowing herself to feel romantically for someone again. Read More