Pixar’s Quest To Pull the Heartstrings Continues With Solid But Unremarkable ‘ONWARD’

February 24, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ali Wong, Chris Pratt, Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Keith Bunin, Lena Waithe, Octavia Spencer, Onward, Out in Theaters, Pixar, Reviews, Tom Holland Leave a comment

I knew from the very onset that Onward was going to work my tear ducts like a German milkmaid squeezing at a bovine’s teat. It didn’t matter that the blue teenage elves looked more like the brainchildren of Dreamworks than Pixar, or that some of the comedy was a bit low-brow and slapstick, or even that Onward settles more in the mid-to-lower tier ranking of the once-unflappable animation studio’s filmography, this movie was always gonna turn me into a mushy adult sniveling away in a dark theater. And that it did. Read More

Murray, Chalamet, McDormand, Swinton, Moss, and Many Many More Assemble for Wes Anderson’s ‘THE FRENCH DISPATCH’ Trailer

February 12, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Elisabeth Moss, Frances McDormand, Jeff Goldblum, Jeffrey Wright, Lea Seydoux Owen Wilson, The French Dispatch, Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, Tony Revolori, Trailers, Wes Anderson Leave a comment

Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Timothee Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Benecio del Toro, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Elisabeth Moss, Tilda Swinton, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Henry Winkler, Rupert Friend, Jeffrey Wright, Tony Revolori. When you have Wes Anderson behind the camera, you know the cast is gonna be God-status but my lord is The French Dispatch absolutely stacked. This could quite honestly go down in history as one of the very best casts in history and they’ve joined Anderson to tell the tale of a fictional American newspaper in a fictional French city. Read More

Anarchic and Dumb ‘BIRDS OF PREY’ is Pure Fun-Loving DCEU Bombast

February 6, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Birds of Prey, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), Cathy Yan, Chris Messina, DC Extended Universe, DCEU, Ewan McGregor, June Smollett-Bell, Margo Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez Leave a comment

I’m only going to write out this whole title once so enjoy it while it lasts. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a movie that’s as excessive, unedited and utterly ridiculous as its title; a go-for-broke, R-rated, comic-book-inspired joyride through the most colorful, femme fatale-populated corners of the DC Extended Universe. Led by a cutesy head-butt of a performance from superstar Margo Robbie, Birds of Prey is a do-over of sorts for the much-maligned Suicide Squad, preserving its annoying pinball storytelling structure (the editing in this movie often stops momentum dead in its tracks) but delivering on the promise of unruly antiheroes actually being quite a bit of fun to watch. Read More

First ‘SPIRAL’ Trailer Reboots the ‘SAW’ Franchise With Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson

February 5, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged Chris Rock, Darren Lynn Bousman, Horror, Josh Stolberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Saw, Spiral, Trailers Leave a comment

In 2010, Saw VII was touted as “The Final Chapter” only for a Jigsaw movie to emerge 7 years later. As the Iron Islanders say, what is dead may never die and in 2020, a franchise twice put to bed reemerges once more to concoct elaborate death machines. In the sparse first look at Spiral, Chris Rock plays a detective joined by a rookie partner played by Max Minghella. Playing Rock’s father, Samuel L Jackson pops in to say “motherfucker” because Sam Jackson’s gotta Sam Jackson. Spiral looks to direct the grudge and gore a different direction this go-around the circular saw, with the intended target (at least in this first glimpse) to be police officers rather than people who have bungled up their lives in the eyes of a deranged cancer patient. Could make for an interesting fresh take or could be yet another rehash of mindless torture porn. Read More

Frosty Cabin in the Woods Horror ’THE LODGE’ Preaches the Hell of Child-Rearing

February 4, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alicia Silverstone, Goodnight Mommy, Horror, Jaeden Martell, Jia McHugh, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Richard Armitage, Sergio Casci, Severin Fiala, Sundance, The Lodge, Veronika Franz 2 Comments

Austrian screenwriting and directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala either have terror children or were terror children. They love staging a good the-children-will-be-the-death-of-us yarn, pivoting from a story about two young mischievous twins torturing their mother (who’s recently undergone facially reconstructive surgery and, consequently, her children now refuse to believe is actually their mother) in their celebrated German-language debut Goodnight Mommy to a tale of two young mischievous siblings torturing their soon-to-be stepmother in their English-language horror show The Lodge. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: Scattershot ’THE NOWHERE INN’ A Meta-Movie About Celebrity Expectations

February 3, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Annie Clark, Ben Betz, Carrie Brownstone, Dakota Johnson, Reviews, St. Vincent, Sundance 2020 Leave a comment

Singer St. Vincent (real name Annie Clark) enlists close friend and filmmaker Carrie Brownstone to make a documentary about her biggest tour yet. The trouble is: she’s incredibly dull off the stage. She does her crunches, snacks on farm-fresh radishes, plays Scrabble. She is no feral rambunctious rockstar. Her Smell this is not. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: ‘RELIC’ and the True Horror of Senility

January 30, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Christian White, Emily Mortimer, Horror, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Erika James, Relic, Reviews, Robyn Nevin, Sundance 2020 Leave a comment

Relic, an old-folks-being-creepy offshoot of midnight squirmer, explores the true-to-life horrors of a matriarch’s deteriorating mental state. Dementia is scary enough before you add in family curses, labyrinthine structures, and ghouls under the bed and in her impressive debut, director Natalie Erika James filters her own traumatic experience confronting her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s through the prism of horror cinema, allowing for an emotionally rich and impressively eerie slice of dramatic horror that speaks to real-life terrors. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: ‘POSSESSOR’ Is A Blood-Soaked Murder Inception That Continues The Cronenberg Legacy

January 29, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Andrea Riseborough, Brandon Cronenberg, Christopher Abbott, Horror, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Reviews, Sean Bean, Sundance 2020 3 Comments

The King of Venereal Horror has begat a true Prince of Pain. Brandon Cronenberg, the 40-year old offspring of Baron of Blood David Cronenberg, takes up his pops’ mantle circa the turn of the century, when the elder Cronenberg began to pivot away from visceral science-fiction-tinged horrors (Videodrome) and bodily transformations (The Fly) and towards more dramatic affairs (A Dangerous Method) and electric thrillers (A History of Violence). As one sun sets, another rises and with Possessor, a movie that marries the chilly intersection between technology and humanity and some absolutely spine-tingling visual depictions of bloodshed, the younger Cronenberg has come into his own. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: Amusing ‘DOWNHILL’ Remake Assumes American Stance, Lets Comic Giants Ride

January 28, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Downhill, Force Majeure, Jim Rash, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miranda Otto, Nat Faxon, Reviews, Sundance 2020, Will Ferrell, Zach Woods Leave a comment

A remake of the critically-acclaimed Swedish drama Force Majeure, Downhill is kind of exactly like most American remakes of critically-acclaimed foreign dramas: amusing but unnecessary. A blue-square redo of a double-black-diamond story. With the hard-packed dual casting of Will Ferrell (who’s better here than he’s been in years) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who also produced), the dramedy from The Way Way Back co-writers and directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash borrows the premise and some of the critical breaking points from Ruben Östlund’s film but also finds room for new traumas and dark comedic moments to unfold. Read More

SUNDANCE 2020: Character-Driven U.K. Horror ‘AMULET’ Takes Time But Packs Punch

January 27, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alec Secareanu, Amulet, Carla Juri, Horror, Imelda Staunton, Reviews, Romola Garai, Sundance 2020 Leave a comment

An atmospheric slow burn that has no qualms really stretching out the burn, the first feature film from director Romola Garai is a deliberately-paced, well-acted and artful horror chamber piece fastened to a real whopper of an ending. Movies live and die by their ending; a great ending can make an otherwise okay movie great and a terrible ending can make an otherwise great movie terrible. This, fortunately, is a case of the former. To Garai’s credit, she absolutely nails the ending, delivering the kind of capstone that makes you go back and reconsider the rest of the film through new eyes and newly discovered context. My mind was racing trying to piece together things as the credits began to roll, certain things not snapping into place until my drive home. (You’ll have to excuse the slower processing power of my brain at the time. It was 2AM after all.) Read More