Icy Free Solo Doc ‘THE ALPINIST’ Makes Alex Honnold Look Like a Moderate Risk-Taker

September 2, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alex Honnold, Documentary, Marc-André Leclerc, Nick Rosen, Out in Theaters, Peter Mortimer, Reviews 3 Comments

The crux of Nick Rosen and Peter Mortimer’s (The Dawn Wall) thrilling new climbing documentary The Alpinist is self-described “true dirtbag” Marc-André Leclerc. Leclerc, a 23-year old Canadian alpine free solo enthusiast-turned-pioneer, is in many ways the antithesis of many modern climbers. Seeking fame is not and never has been his purpose, the documentary beginning with Leclerc as more of a mythical easter egg, a whisper within the upper rungs of the climbing community. Much like The Sparks are “your favorite band’s favorite band”, Leclerc is your favorite climbers’ favorite climber. His bonafides are certified early on when climbing rockstar and Free Solo subject Alex Honnold choses Leclerc when asked who in the climbing world impressed him. Read More

Social Horror ‘CANDYMAN’ Radically Addresses Black Trauma in Brutal Fashion

August 25, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Candyman, Colman Domingo, John Guleserian, Jordan Peele, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Nia DaCosta, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowes, Teyonah Parris, Win Rosenfeld, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II 2 Comments

For what it does right – and it does do plenty right – Bernard Rose’s 1992 cult horror-slasher Candyman feels like a dated product of its racially off-putting times. Hone in on where it focuses the spotlight: Virginia Madsen’s curious and lily white grad student Helen Lyle, out to deconstruct the urban myths of a hook-handed boogeyman terrorizing the Black community. A white woman in distress scouring the trauma of the African-American hood, Helen is a peculiar cypher for a story about the lingering horrors of race. Read More

Dystopian Neo-Noir Love Story ‘REMINISCENCE’ Made Me Feel Nothing

August 19, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Cliff Curtis, Hugh Jackson, Lisa Joy, Out in Theaters, Rebecca Ferguson, Reminiscence, Reviews, Thandiwe Newton 1 Comment

If it keeps on raining the levy’s going to break. As sang by Robert Plant so it goes in Reminiscence, Lisa Joy’s stodgy science fiction noir some untold years into a future devastated by climate change and war. As an increasingly uninhabitable earth grows wetter and hotter with each passing year, oceans eat away at what is left of America. The roaring heat of the daytime turns humanity into nocturnal creatures. Dry lands become the new gold standard but greedy barons snap up what they can and leave little for the masses. With populations displaced and growing civil unrest, humanity turns increasingly to memories of yesteryear. Read More

Entertaining ‘THE SUICIDE SQUAD’ Surprisingly Conventional for Comic Book Movie That Weaponizes Polka Dots

August 4, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Daniela Melchior, David Dastmalchian, DC, DCEU, Idris Elba, Jai Courtney, James Gunn, Joel Kinnaman, John Cena, Margot Robbie, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, Pete Davidson, Peter Capaldi, Reviews, Sean Gunn, Storm Reid, Sylvester Stallone, The Suicide Squad, Viola Davis 1 Comment

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

‘JUNGLE CRUISE’ Charters a Noisy, Pun-Fueled Trip Down Familiar Waters

July 29, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Disney, Dwayne Johnson, Édgar Ramírez, Emily Blunt, Glenn Fircarra, Jaume Collet-Serra, Jesse Plemons, John Requa, Jungle Cruise, Michael Green, Out in Theaters, Paul Giamatti, Reviews 1 Comment

What to say about Jungle Cruise, Disney’s latest attempt to mine existing IP for franchise potential and big box office ducats, that isn’t already implied by its existence? For all intents and purposes, the movie is fine. An unremarkable, CGI-heavy “throwback” to the swashbuckling serials of the 1920’s, Jungle Cruise doesn’t hide its obvious aspirations to turn a Disneyland ride into another major media franchise a la Pirates of the Caribbean. The result is filmmaking as pure commerce, the beancounters at the House of Mouse barely containing their cynicism for audiences who see marquee names and a decently cut trailer and rush to cinemas (or, now, Disney+) to trade in their hard earned dollars for 127 minutes of chiseled, forgettable fantasy-adventure mediocrity. Read More

Cathartic Documentary ‘ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN’ Grapples with Dark Profundity

July 7, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Documentary, Morgan Neville, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain 2 Comments

I’d never watched a full episode of any of Anthony Bourdain’s various programs but I knew of and admired the man nonetheless. A New York line cook turned globe-trotting modern day philosopher, Bourdain embodied the idea that travel is a transformative business and Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain reveals a man changed – for the better, and the worse – for it. For Bourdain, a willingness to try anything once coupled with a desire to go to the furthest reaches of the globe to reveal an inner yearning and restlessness. Read More

‘THE FOREVER PURGE’ Is Redundant, Already Behind the Times

July 1, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ana de la Reguera, Everardo Gout, Horror, James DeMonaco, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Tenoch Huerta, The Forever Purge, The Purge, Will Patton Leave a comment

Subtlety has never been the aim of James DeMonaco, the writer-director of the first trilogy of Purge flicks as well as screenwriter for the remaining sequels and all-around franchise figurehead, and that’s never been more clear than in The Forever Purge. Claiming to be the final film in the franchise that spawned four sequels and two seasons of a now-cancelled USA Network series, The Forever Purge puts our turbulent American politics front and center, creating a not-too-distant vision where MAGA-inspired insurrectionists continue the “legalized violence” at the film’s center beyond the allowed 12-hour window of the purge. A new dawn brings the continuation of violence as America enters a “forever purge”, a state of bullet-ridden eternal mayhem; a nightmarish ever after of racially-motivated violence. Read More

Better Late than Never, ‘BLACK WIDOW’ Gives MCU’s Preeminent Shero a Fitting Sendoff

June 29, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Black Widow, Cate Shortland, David Harbour, Eric Pearson, Florence Pugh, Jac Schaeffe, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, MCU, Natasha Romanoff, Out in Theaters, Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, Reviews, Scarlett Johansson, William Hurt 1 Comment

The second to last of the original Avengers to get her own standalone bow (with Hawkeye’s very own miniseries hitting Disney+ late 2021), Black Widow has been long overdue her turn in the spotlight for some time now. If we weren’t living in an aggressively patriarchal society, it might seem strange that it took so long to get Scarlett Johansson, who has led the charts for most bankable actress alive for many years, her own feature film. But then again it seems that Hollywood suits only recently learned the lesson that the masses would turn out for superhero movies that starred people other than white men and so thus Black Widow was bankrolled into existence, 11 years after her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Read More

A Ratchet Weekend Goes Viral in A24 Sex Work Drama ‘ZOLA’

June 28, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Colman Domingo, Janicza Bravo, Nicholas Braun, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Riley Keough, Taylour Paige, Zola 1 Comment

If you haven’t read the hysterically unhinged 148-tweet thread that details how the eponymous Aziah “Zola” King (Taylour Paige) and “this white bitch” Stefani (Riley Keough) fell out, fear not: Zola will gladly fill in all the gory deets for you. One of the buzziest breakout splashes from 2020’s Sundance Film Festival, Zola is a kinetic social media-influenced dark comedy that adapts what was deemed “the greatest stripper saga ever tweeted” with visual style and sardonic pizzaz to spare. Exploding with personality and a flair for Gen-Z garishness (with too many tweet-notification audio drops to count), the latest great from A24 traps audience, alongside the titular Zola, in a prison-stay of a weekend as everything goes horribly wrong. Before it all went viral. Read More

There’s Somehow Even More Family And Furious Stupidity in Ridiculous ‘F9’

June 23, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Charlize Theron, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, F9, Fast & Furious, Helen Mirren, John Cena, Justin Lin, Kurt Russell, Michael Rooker, Michelle Rodriguez, Nathalie Emmanuel, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Sung Kang, Tyrese Gibson, Vin Diesel 3 Comments

It might not have been until F9: The Fast Saga that the Toretto crew finally launched into outer space but the long-running Fast & Furious franchise left Earth’s rotations a long time ago. When Fast Five reconfigured what was possible for the crew of once-car-jackers and small-time criminals by making them larger-than-life master-criminals to whom the laws of physics bent the knee in surrender, all bets were finally off. Helmer Justin Lin had reached a pinnacle of the utterly ridiculous, high-octane bombast that fueled the car-based action films and laid the template for all that would follow. Fast would never be the same. Read More