Chris McCoy

Chris McCoy
Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:
Chris McCoy is the Film/TV Editor for The Memphis Flyer. He has been writing about film and television professionally since 2001, and also writes travel, science, profiles and general interest articles on a freelance basis. Along with his wife, Laura Jean Hocking, he is the co-owner of the film and video production company Oddly Buoyant Productions. He has directed three feature films, including the award-winning Memphis punk rock documentary Antenna, as well as numerous short films and music videos.
Favorites:
Mad Max: Fury Road Moonlight Us Out Of The Past Faces, Places Close Encounters of the Third Kind Star Wars: The Last Jedi Treasure of the Sierra Madre Man With A Movie Camera The General This Is What Love In Action Looks Like Dolemite Is My Name
Publications: Memphis Flyer

Movie Reviews Only

T-Meter Title | Year
52% Coming 2 America (2021) This is a pop confection whose only goal is to entertain as broadly as possible. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 6, 2021
96% Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) Kaluuya's earth-shaking performance may be the headline, but everything from the noir-toned cinematography to the banging score is honed to a razor edge. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 17, 2021
98% Minari (2020) The stakes in Minari are refreshingly low. No one is saving the world; they're just trying to keep a marriage together and food on the table. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 12, 2021
94% Nomadland (2021) McDormand's performance might just be the best of her storied career. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2021
59% Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Somewhere along the line, Jenkins lost the plot. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 26, 2020
100% J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs & The Church of the SubGenius (2020) In many ways, the SubGenius were ahead of their time. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 18, 2020
25% Hillbilly Elegy (2020) The Grapes of Wrath this ain't. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Dec 4, 2020
98% David Byrne's American Utopia (2020) In this time of darkness, Byrne and Lee say we can once again come together to pursue that elusive dream of utopia. With this singularly joyous film, they are leading by example. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 22, 2020
89% Save Yourselves! (2020) Shot before the pandemic, Save Yourselves! captures the feeling of isolation, and having your worst fears realized on the regular. If that's not relatable in 2020, I don't know what is. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Oct 8, 2020
86% The Social Dilemma (2020) Hi, my name's Chris, and I'm a social media addict. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 25, 2020
73% Mulan (2020) Unlike some movies in the $100-million club, Mulan puts the money on the screen. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2020
70% Tenet (2020) Tenet addresses some important themes, such as the dangers of technology concentrating world-shattering powers in the hands of unaccountable individuals, but it treats the world as an abstraction of physics, not as a real place where real people live. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 22, 2020
82% Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) I have great admiration for films that know exactly what they want to do and spend all their time doing it. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 3, 2020
96% Class Action Park (2020) The wave pool had a "death zone". - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Sep 3, 2020
88% Desert One (2020) Barbara Kopple is one of America's greatest and most important documentary directors. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 26, 2020
72% An American Pickle (2020) An American Pickle is about the feeling that the past would be disappointed in the present. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 12, 2020
83% She Dies Tomorrow (2020) Call it Panic Attack: The Motion Picture. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 12, 2020
80% The Old Guard (2020) The good news is, The Old Guard is better than Highlander II - but that's true of literally every movie ever. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Aug 5, 2020
93% Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020) It's like two dozen character sketches stuck together with gum found under a bar table, and I mean that as a compliment. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 29, 2020
94% Palm Springs (2020) If you're going to play in the Ramis/Murray sandbox, you better bring your A game. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 16, 2020
98% Hamilton (2020) No soundstage-bound film will ever match the blood-and-guts heroism of these glorious humans facing a full house on a Friday night. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jul 3, 2020
92% Da 5 Bloods (2020) Spike Lee does not make tidy movies. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 22, 2020
87% Shirley (2020) The real fireworks happen when the camera is pointed at Elisabeth Moss. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2020
79% How to Build a Girl (2020) How to Build a Girl succeeds as a feminist Almost Famous because Feldstein is so successful at tracing the critic's arc from naiveté to cynicism to, finally, hard-won sincerity. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted May 14, 2020
100% Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020) It's an exquisitely crafted documentary with humor and pathos that will forever change the way you look at sidewalk wheelchair ramps. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted May 7, 2020
94% Beastie Boys Story (2020) What Beastie Boys Story lacks in detail, it makes up for in pathos, a word you probably wouldn't have associated with the guys who wrote "Cooky Puss." - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 29, 2020
91% Uncorked (2020) One thing Uncorked gets right about Memphis barbecue is the deeply personal connection our restaurateurs have with their cuisine. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Apr 2, 2020
38% Wendy (2020) Just sit back and let the beauty of Wendy flow over you, and escape to Neverland for a few precious minutes. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Mar 19, 2020
91% The Invisible Man (2020) This isn't a film about "what would you do if you could be invisible?" It's about domestic abuse. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 28, 2020
62% The Call of the Wild (2020) It's a grizzled Harrison Ford and a St. Bernard tromping through the idyllic Canadian wilderness. I may be a sardonic film critic, but I'm not made of stone. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 27, 2020
74% The Photograph (2020) The question becomes, will Mae and Michael make the same mistake of sacrificing happiness for success? One thing's for sure: They're going to look good doing it. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2020
78% Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) The journey of Harley from henchwoman to antagonist, and her determination to get out from under the shadow of her more famous boyfriend, is where the energies of the all-woman creative team have been directed. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Feb 17, 2020
100% Honeyland (2019) It's a humane and fascinating story told with nuance and compassion for all of its subjects - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 31, 2020
77% Bad Boys for Life (2020) It's Smith and Lawrence who redeem this film, to the extent that it is redeemed. They're both miraculously well-preserved, their chemistry is great, and Smith's movie-star charisma is set to stun. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 23, 2020
95% Roma (2018) Fundamentally, it's a character piece about Chloe. Aparicio's placid, yet expressive face sometimes recalls Renée Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Hers is a brilliant, unmannered performance. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
95% If Beale Street Could Talk (2019) Director Barry Jenkins has broken the rule that mediocre books make the best movies. He takes Baldwin's dauntingly nonlinear literary structure and makes it smooth and easily understandable. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
97% Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Impossible shots coupled with a breezy screenplay make this the most fun superhero movie since Sam Raimi shot an upside down Toby Maguire kissing Kirsten Dunst. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
83% Creed II (2018) Creed II is like the best parts of Rocky II-V hot glued together. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
78% Green Book (2018) Green Book is well-meaning and competently made, but anodyne and ultimately ephemeral entertainment. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
89% The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) On an artistic level, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an unreserved success. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
88% Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) It's charming and self-aware, but not enough to really elevate Ralph Breaks The Internet beyond a routine kid-pleasing pot boiler. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
36% Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) For most of Crimes, Rowling, who wrote the screenplay, and director David Yates, who brought the original Potter film octalogy to its conclusion, chase one subplot after another and end up nowhere. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
93% Wildlife (2018) Wildlife is the inside story of a family burning down, but it is also a tale of toxic masculinity and capitalism's spiritual toll. It's a work that bridges the intimate and expansive with deceptive ease. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
61% Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) This is record label-approved hagiography, and those doing the approving seem to see Mercury's sexual orientation as a character flaw he must overcome. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
93% The Old Man & the Gun (2018) Lowery, who had the unenviable task of directing someone who has both a Best Director and Best Picture Oscar, is at the top of his game. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
87% First Man (2018) There are flashes of brilliance in First Man, but like the stuck thruster that almost killed Neil Armstrong before he ever got to the moon, the shoddy photography sends the whole thing spinning out of control. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
90% A Star Is Born (2018) This is high melodrama of a kind rarely seen these days, or executed this well at any time. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
24% The Nun (2018) If you're ready to kick off horror season a few weeks early, there are lots of opportunities to do better than this tedious nun-sense. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
91% Crazy Rich Asians (2018) The film succeeds because Chu and company are strongly empathetic toward the targets of their comedy. The foibles of the Crazy Rich Asians are just like ours, only more expensive. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020
80% Alpha (2018) Alpha ultimately won me over with its pluck. It's not a perfect movie, but its heart is in the right place, and that's what counts. - Memphis Flyer EDIT
Read More | Posted Jan 21, 2020