‘DUMB MONEY’ A Meme Movie With Moderate Returns

September 18, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos, Ben Mezrich, Clancy Brown, Craig Gillespie, Dumb Money, Lauren Schuker Blum, Myha’la Herrold, Nick Offerman, Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Rebecca Angelo, Reviews, Rushi Kota, Sebastian Stan, Seth Rogen, Shailene Woodley, Talia Ryder, Vincent D'Onofrio 2 Comments

The premise of Dumb Money is simple: slap an ensemble of human faces on the viral Game Stop stock story and run the highlight reel. The star-studded meme movie from director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella) effectively transports us to a not-so-distant past: January 2021. The pandemic was still in full swing, masks were mandated, the term “essential worker” applied to nurses and DoorDash drivers alike, and people were looking for something to root for. Enter Keith Gill (Paul Dano), aka Roaring Kitty aka DeepFuckingValue (DFV), a low-level financial analyst and hobbyist YouTuber who dumps his $53,000 life savings into GameStop positions and decides to tell the internet why. In turn, Gill starts a movement of retail traders who follow suit, looking to enrich themselves but also – and equally importantly – take down the proverbial man. Read More

‘TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEAST’ is Just Another Tired Entry in a Robotic Saga

June 5, 2023 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Anthony Ramos, Dean Scott Vazquez, Dominique Fishback, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts 1 Comment

1994 – a year when hip hop was flourishing, the Internet was a nascent wonder, and the Autobots were still saving the Earth – or something to that effect. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the seventh installment in the live-action Transformers series, leaps back to this era for yet another round of robot-on-robot rumblings. However, unlike the cool nostalgia of the 90s, the film is a profoundly uninteresting amalgamation of brain-deadening franchise IP and connective brand synergy. Read More

Lively, Diverse ‘IN THE HEIGHTS’ The Best Broadway Musical Adaptation In Years

June 7, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alice Brooks, Andrew Baseman, Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Gregory Diaz IV, In the Heights, Jimmy Smit, Jon M Chu, Leslie Grace, Lin-Manuel Mirand, Melissa Barrera, Mitchell Traver Leave a comment

Generally, I’m not the world’s biggest musical fan. I’ll admit it: I often think them overlong, shallow in terms of character development and depth, and find the musical theater standards tend to be mainly forgettable, with a few catchy showstoppers mixed in for good measure. In The Heights, the best straight Broadway stage adaptation in quite some time, falls pray to these shortcomings while managing to remain a highly-engaging, uber-flashy toe-tapper that celebrates the cultural diversity of one of New York City’s last gentrification holdouts. As far as stage-to-screen musicals go, there’s not all that much to complain about.