‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ Offers Peak Blockbuster Thrills, Exceeding Original On Every Front

May 24, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Claudio Miranda, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Joseph Kosinski, Justin Marks, Lorne Balfe, Miles Teller, Peter Craig, Reviews, tom cruise, Top Gun: Maverick 3 Comments

Cruise. Control.

A legacy sequel that could have easily been nothing more than unnecessary nostalgia bait, Top Gun: Maverick is instead a tour de force blockbuster that reminds us of the joys of watching movies at the theater. After two years of wondering what the future of in-person cinema would look like in a post-Covid era, the high-flying feature from director Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion, Only the Brave) recalls the aspirational magic of the theatrical experience by looking back at what came before while also graciously paving the path forward. Read More

Bone Dry Procedural ’THE REPORT’ Values Facts Over Emotion

November 12, 2019 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Corey Stoll, Jon Hamm, Michael C. Hall, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Scott Z. Burns, Tim Blake Nelson Leave a comment

From longtime Steven Soderberg collaborator and writer/director Scott Z. Burns, The Report is a well-researched and competently constructed journalistic procedural that lacks in human emotion. Very much in a similar vein as movies like Spotlight and All the President’s Men, but lacking their towering sense of immediacy and tension, Burns’ film values objectivity and nonpartisanship most highly, allowing little room for things like a heartbeat or even the cinematic thrills customary with similar dramatic procedurals. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE’

October 9, 2018 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bad Times at the El Royale, Cailee Spaeny, Chris Hemsworth, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Drew Goddard, Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Reviews 1 Comment

Long-winded and neither as smart, surprising, or sassy as it thinks, Bad Times at the El Royale is a stylish snow-globe of sixties subcultures clown-car piled into an overdrawn neo-noir. Bursting at the seams with metaphorical material and cultural commentary but featherlight on plot and deep-dive character development, this strangers-at-a-hotel mystery has a lot of guff and bluster but little actual punch. It’s not exactly bad times but the times decidedly aren’t so grand either. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘BABY DRIVER’

June 26, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ansel Egort, Baby Driver, Edgar Wright, Eliza González, Jaime Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Kevin Spacey, Out in Theaters, Reviews, SXSW '17 Leave a comment

It’s been a hot minute since Edgar Wright has graced us with his genius. The man responsible for such perfect fare as Shaun of the Dead andHot Fuzz, Wright has long been a pioneer of the Trojan horse comedy, trafficking highbrow laughs in with genre trappings. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wright is known for his masterful command of visual language, finding laugh-out loud moments in sharp editing, frame composition, camera operation and a great ear for music that amplifies the deadpan, pun-happy, tongue-in-cheek writing gushing from the page. As the mainstream moves more and more toward studio comedies disemboweled by flat visual palettes that fail to embolden jokes with any discernible directorial decisions, Wright has further articulated and championed his particular filmmaking flavour and the world of cinephiles has been the more fortunate for it. Which takes us to Baby Driver. Read More

SXSW ’17 Review: ‘BABY DRIVER’

March 13, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Ansel Egort, Baby Driver, Edgar Wright, Eliza González, Jaime Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Kevin Spacey, Reviews, SXSW '17 3 Comments

It’s been a hot minute since Edgar Wright has graced us with his genius. The man responsible for such perfect fare as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Wright has long been a pioneer of the Trojan horse comedy, trafficking highbrow laughs in with genre trappings. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wright is known for his masterful command of visual language, finding laugh-out loud moments in sharp editing, frame composition, camera operation and a great ear for music that amplifies the deadpan, pun-happy, tongue-in-cheek writing gushing from the page. As the mainstream moves more and more toward studio comedies disemboweled by flat visual palettes that fail to embolden jokes with any discernible directorial decisions, Wright has further articulated and championed his particular filmmaking flavour and the world of cinephiles has been the more fortunate for it. Which takes us to Baby Driver. Read More

Gratuitous Trailer Breakdown: The Return of WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER and the Internet Age of Cult

July 18, 2015 by Harrison Foster Posted in Editorials, Film Editorials, Trailers Tagged Bradley Cooper, Cult Film, Editorials, Gratuitous Trailer Breakdown, Jon Hamm, Netflix, Trailers, Wet Hot American Summer 1 Comment

It’s here! Fourteen years later, we finally return to Camp Firewood (unless you count the 50 or 60 times you’ve watched Wet Hot American Summer as “returning” – which I most certainly do.) In 2001, the parody of 1980s summer-camp-sploitation movies that no one asked for (and if they did they would have asked about twelve years earlier) debuted at Sundance to four sold out crowds and zero buyers. Eventually it was released in approximately 30 cities, made approximately zero money, and was pretty much ignored to death. But that is how legends are born (isn’t it?).