Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
“It was so wonderful.” That was my three-year-old daughter’s verdict after watching Zootopia 2, which marked both her first press screening and her first time seeing a movie in a theater. And I have to agree. Even if you remove the film’s actual quality from the equation, the experience itself—sharing one of my greatest joys with my wide-eyed little girl as she gleefully demolished popcorn and a sour apple ICEE—was pure movie magic. Read More
A House of Dynamite from Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award-winning creator of such American political thrillers as The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, and the more uneven Detroit, is a taut, ensemble-driven thriller that wants to hold a mirror up to the global powder keg we’re all currently living in. It’s smartly cast, technically precise, and structured around a compelling premise: what happens in the wake of a rogue nuclear missile headed for U.S. soil? And yet, despite its ambition to provoke, A House of Dynamite fumbles the landing. Or more accurately, it refuses to make landfall at all, leaving audiences with more questions than answers. That may be the point – being intentionally provocative here seems the modus operandi – but it results in less than satisfactory storytelling. Read More
All You Need Is Love
First and foremost, Three Thousand Years of Longing is a story about stories. The history of stories, the way in which we tell stories, and the generational impact of those stories. How stories make us feel, make us yearn, make us swoon, make us fundamentally who we are. How stories become passed down from generation to generation and find themselves colored by those telling them. Where is the intersection of truth and stories? And how much can we expect our narrators to be bastions of truth? Further, the film probes how the stories we tell ourselves and others about who we are become self-fulfilling prophecies. Essentially – how autobiography can trap their tellers, ensnaring them within a cycle of lying about who or what they truly are. It’s a shame then that the least successful aspect of this particular yarn is the way that it unspools its story. Read More
Be Prepared
Idris Elba is Dr. Nate Samuels, a man visiting his late wife’s African homeland with his two teenage daughters in the predictable, playful creature feature Beast. The Savannah-set B-movie from director Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, 2 Guns) is a lean, mean summer slasher, all tightly-coiled, knuckle-headed muscle and razor-sharp claws lacking any more brain cells than absolutely required. A vengeful lion hunting humans for sport attacks the good doctor, his daughters Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries), and their anti-poacher family friend Martin (Sharlto Copley) while the group is on safari. They must lean on their wits to outsmart the beast and come out of the bush in one piece.
Look no further than James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad for proof that superhero media has truly become too big to fail. As legions of old and new, traditional and bizarre, familiar and not-so-familiar heroes position themselves to win out at the box office, as well as, increasingly, on our premium streaming services, comic lore has become the last remaining monocultural tentpole of our current age. Read More
From VCR heists to saving the entire world from a virus that melts your insides, The Fast & Furious franchise has long been one of fast and furious reinvention. With a tradition of shifting cast lineups, the car-based franchise saw its crew transition from small-time criminals to world-class agents and assets who global governments call upon when a situation is too big for them to handle. The early days of the Fast franchise, in a sense, saw one spin-off after another. The second movie (the egregiously titled 2 Fast 2 Furious) kept only Paul Walker from the original 2001 flick while adding newcomer Tyrese Gibson into the mix. The third (Tokyo Drift) shifted to another continent entirely and had only the thinnest of connective tissue to previous installations vis-a-vis a throwaway Vin Diesel cameo. It was only when the films jammed everyone together and added Dwayne Johnson into the mix in Fast Five that everything started coming up diesel. Read More
Candy-colored Thor: Ragnarok is a retro, dimension-hopping hoot. Rambunctious, joyous and just plain fun to watch, Ragnarok is shellacked with vintage Taika Waititi style, the critical darling director behind such rollicking Rotten Tomatoes-adored comedy-adventures as Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do in the Shadows and Boy retaining his idiomatic filmmaking tactics even under the watchful eye of notoriously handsy Marvel producers. The best of the Thor films (and this coming from someone who actually admits to enjoying the previous two), Ragnarok employs Taika’s signature witty, irreverent approach to comedy and his knack for building genuine camaraderie among squirelly outcasts to craft the funniest blockbuster of the year, one that doubles as a hell of an odd-couple intergalactic road trip, even if it still barely breaks the lather-rinse-repeat nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe mold. Read More
I was duped. The culprit? The Mountain Between Us. What appeared to be a two-hander survival drama between thespian heavies Kate Winslet and Idris Elba slowly melted into a Nick Sparksian romance meets 90’s Eagles ballad. “Love Will Keep Us Alive” may not play over the credits but it’s the essential thrust of this otherwise admittedly well-performed, handsomely shot feature film and as the material pivots into saccharine territory, it loses both steam and credibility, resulting in a final slog that’ll shatter more suspension of disbelief than bones in Winslet’s ankle. Read More
Synopsis: “Raised by a family of wolves since birth, Mowgli (Neel Sethi) must leave the only home he’s ever known when the fearsome tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) unleashes his mighty roar. Guided by a no-nonsense panther (Ben Kingsley) and a free-spirited bear (Bill Murray), the young boy meets an array of jungle animals, including a slithery python and a smooth-talking ape. Along the way, Mowgli learns valuable life lessons as his epic journey of self-discovery leads to fun and adventure.” Read More
Beyond darkness. Beyond logic. Beyond hope. The latest Star Trek film zooms beyond at hyper speed, rarely pausing to strike a Thinker’s pose. (Though it would rather like you to think it does.) Whereas Auguste Rodin’s bronze baby heralds contemplation, Star Trek Beyond plows through any fleeting semblance of intelligence like a horde of metal space bees engaged in kamikaze. Failing to ruminate on why audiences ought to care one iota about its disposable, busied antics. Hurrying from one expense-sheet-filling green-screen scuttlebutt to the next. Over-relying on character relationships that are age old but still skin-deep. Just another blockbuster puffy with CG steroids that’s lacking a brain, passing off sentimentality as heart and blahly going where we’ve all certainly been before. Read More