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Zoë Kravitz’s Electrifying ‘BLINK TWICE’ Delivers Deadly Thrills

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Tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) is in the midst of a rebrand. A year after an undisclosed incident sparked a public apology tour, he’s turned over a new leaf, diving into philanthropic efforts while secluding himself on a mysterious remote island. His claims of reform are complicated by rumors of debauchery—all-night parties, sketchy associates, an on-hand pharmacy of designer drugs. This does little to deter the eager Frida (Naomi Ackie), a jejune cocktail waitress working the gala his company KingTech is hosting. Frida may still be figuring things out, but one thing is certain—brushing shoulders with Slater, if only for the night, would be a memory worth making. Read More

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Psalms and Sleaze Line the End of Ti West’s Trilogy in ‘MAXXXINE’

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Celebrity and faith are at impassable odds in the capstone to Ti West’s surprise trilogy, MaXXXine. What started with ’70s shlock in X, then traveled back in time to WWI-era West Texas with the outstanding technicolor prequel Pearl, now arrives in 1980s Hollywood in MaXXXine. The titular character, consistently played with wild-eyed abandon and gnawing verve by Mia Goth across the three films, grapples with the events of her blood-soaked past, sheds her present porn star celebrity, and charges into a bright future as a legitimate actress. Read More

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Effective ‘A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE’ Expands Franchise Through Renewed Intimacy

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If you’re going to have a movie that’s basically 90% a silent film, you can’t do much better than casting the venerable Lupita Nyong’o in the starring role. The Academy Award nominee has the ability to absolutely command the screen with her physicality, combining her incredibly expressive eyes and ticcy body language, and her strengths prove a perfect fit for the very particular demands of the Quiet Place universe. The Academy has often overlooked horror performances, but awards recognition or not, Nyong’o is offering next-level genre work in the dramatically effective and true-to-its-roots prequel A Quiet Place: Day One. Read More

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‘KINDS OF KINDNESS’ A Freaky Foray Into Yorgos’ Hilarious Depravity 

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A trio of demented fables make up Yorgos Lanthimos’ most recent film, Kinds of Kindness. An anthological miasma of the bizarre and misanthropic, Yorgos returns to his biting roots as a somewhat impenetrable provocateur, escaping easy explanation at every turn, armed with a razor sharp sense of satirical humor. Featuring an outstanding ensemble cast that cycles through various characters throughout the film’s distinct – and mostly unconnected – three short, Kinds of Kindess filters the filmmaker’s most esoteric curiosities through an almost Black Mirror filter, making for a collection of works that are strong and striking on there own merit but add up to something entirely captivating when taken as a whole. Read More

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‘THE BIKERIDERS’ A GRUFF MOTO-DRAMA ABOUT “COOL GUYS” AND “GOOD OLE TIMES”

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Arkansas-born filmmaker Jeff Nichols has a way of channeling a certain kind of Americana onto the screen that few of his contemporaries are able to capture. There’s a very particular kind of grit and masculinity that defines a Nichol’s feature, with characters experiencing gnawing heartache and an often overbearing patriarchal sense of responsibility, despite often being on the fringes of society, manic or mad to many outsiders looking in. This is as true in Take Shelter and Mud—both about ‘crazed’ outsiders—as it is in Loving and Midnight Special, the former depicting Richard and Mildred Loving’s arrest for their interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia, and the latter a sci-fi drama about a father protecting his ‘powered’ son at all costs. Read More

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‘YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA’ Is a Welcome Return to the Inspirational Disney Sports Drama

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A good old-fashioned Disney sports drama, complete with a plucky underdog story, historically accurate social injustices, and a score with more swells than the English Channel, Young Woman and the Sea is a return to form for the studio behind uplifting sports dramas like Remember the Titans and Cool Runnings. Based on the true story of swimmer Trudy Ederle, this triumphant tale of human perseverance takes place in the years following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in the United States, though it did little to change their daily lot. Despite suffragette efforts for equality, sports remained strictly a man’s game. When Trudy Ederle sets her sights on becoming the first woman to swim across the English Channel, she must battle both the harsh conditions of the sea and the turbulence of a patriarchal system not only standing in her way but actively sabotaging her efforts to succeed. Read More

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Apes Strong in Another Technical Marvel for Resilient Franchise with ‘KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES’

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That rare franchise that continues to find new ways to engage its IP by heading in exciting and interesting directions, The Planet of the Apes has flexed its simian strength once more. Coming off a terrific rebooted trilogy (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes) that earned its crown as one of the best – if not in conversation for the best – post-modern movie trilogies, director Wes Ball had some significant expectations to contend with. Thankfully, Ball has risen to the occasion, ushering in a new dawn of this saga, and gone to war for the kind of emotionally-driven, intellectually-satisfying narrative that Apes has carved out for itself in an increasingly anti-intellectual blockbuster market.  Read More

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‘BOY KILLS WORLD’ A Graphic Overkill That Tires Quickly

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Boy Kills World plunges viewers into a frenetic, hyper-stylized dystopia reminiscent of a violent graphic novel, drenched in buckets of expertly-extracted gore. It’s a stylish mélange of the warped battle royale fantasia of The Hunger Games with Schumacher’s colorful and daffy 90s Batman movie entries, spiced with a dash of the meta, self-aware hyper-violence of the popular TV series The Boys. A decidedly over-the-top action genre entry by first-time filmmaker Moritz Mohr, Boy Kills World swings for the fences, though it occasionally whiffs due to its extreme, maximalist approach. Read More

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Dev Patel’s ‘MONKEY MAN’ is Franchisable Action Fare in Inequitable India

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Written, directed, and starring Dev Patel, Monkey Man is Patel’s action movie passion project. Written as a means of rejuvenating the formulaic genre by infusing it with “real pain”, “real trauma”, and a dash of cultural intrigue, Monkey Man is nonetheless pretty standard revenge-driven action fare, though Patel’s passion in front of and behind the camera is undeniable. A furious fisticuff beat-em-up, Patel’s movie interweaves elements from Indian mythology—drawing heavily on the legend of the invincible deity Hanuman for its hero’s backstory—with a narrative set against the backdrop of societal inequity and upheaval reminiscent of current politics under a Modi-esque ruler.  Read More

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Monstrously Dumb ‘GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE’ As Empty As Hollow Earth

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More a proper Kong movie with some Godzilla spice sprinkled on top than the titan buddy movie that the marketing materials insists this film is, Adam Wingard’s cartoonish Godzilla x Kong: New Empire is loud, brash, and dumb, with its wee share of monster fun. Will it be enough to satisfy audiences hungry for more large-scale monster mashing? Probably – but for a franchise that consistently undervalues things like character, stakes, and scale, and still manages decent box office returns and mild reviews, that’s not particularly hard to achieve. This fifth edition in Warner Brother’s MonsterVerse picks up after the events of Godzilla vs. Kong where, as the title implies, the two titans threw down in a tedious battle that overshadowed any semblance of human subplot. Read More