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4/5
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Godzilla Minus One
(2023)
|
Joe George
|
Godzilla of Minus One once again represents the uncontrollable destruction of atomic weapons. But Yamazaki broadens the movie's metaphorical view to link Godzilla to war in general, a seemingly unstoppable death dealer with no understandable motivation.
Posted Nov 29, 2023
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The Final Girls
(2015)
|
Don Kaye
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Deconstructs its chosen genre without the cynicism that could render an exercise such as this into simple, unengaging snark, and proves that it’s okay for the filmmakers to like their victims, right down to the final ones.
Posted Nov 28, 2023
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5/5
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Poor Things
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
While it could never be mistaken for a horror movie, I am quite certain it will horrify some folks, perhaps including Oscar voters. For others, though, Stone’s galvanizing Bella Baxter is sure to become a cinematic legend in her own right.
Posted Nov 27, 2023
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3/5
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Wish
(2023)
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David Crow
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The music in Wish has the flatness of Top 40 radio, and is ultimately the albatross around the film's neck that prevents it from ever going supernova.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3.5/5
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Napoleon
(2023)
|
David Crow
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There is the unmistakable sense that this Napoleon is an Englishman’s smirking estimation of “the little general” with the big head. The French will probably hate it.
Posted Nov 15, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
(2023)
|
David Crow
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It’s grandiose, kooky, and sometimes cruel. But despite being adapted from a YA book, this gray universe still feels refreshingly adult in our own modern multiplex land of bread and circuses.
Posted Nov 15, 2023
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2.5/5
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The Marvels
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
It’s just another straight down the middle product that ignored each and every opportunity it had along the way to be something better. If that no longer is working for audiences, perhaps it's time to rethink the formula.
Posted Nov 08, 2023
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2/5
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Five Nights at Freddy's
(2023)
|
David Crow
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One night is too many.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
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4.5/5
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
Scorsese didn't even make a Western. Killers of the Flower Moon is a reckoning, as sprawling as it is merciless; a sober-eyed view of the greed, hatred, and largely white desire for always, forever, more, even long after the West has been "won."
Posted Oct 16, 2023
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4/5
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Priscilla
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Sofia Coppola achieves her aim in making a film that is neither about a so-called king or, for that matter, a queen. This is the story of a woman so young and in love that she mistakes gilded cage bars for the Gates of Graceland.
Posted Oct 12, 2023
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2/5
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The Exorcist: Believer
(2023)
|
David Crow
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I'm not sure exactly what it wants to be, but I don't believe it’s scary. In fact, I don't believe it at all.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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2.5/5
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The Creator
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
Sometimes a toaster is just a toaster, and an artificial intelligence weepie is just artificial. There really is no heartbeat underneath all those bells and whistles.
Posted Sep 28, 2023
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3/5
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A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
Branagh’s passionate insistence that Poirot is one of the great roles remains. It gives A Haunting in Venice a curious spell. I might be skeptical about its faith in the character, but it’s hard to regret attending a seance with him.
Posted Sep 14, 2023
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The Equalizer 3
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
At one point, Fanning attempts to spy on Robert, sneaking a photo while he sits sipping espresso. He turns, offering a big irresistible smile for the camera. The whole film is that pose, be it while holding a wine glass or a derrière-destroying shotgun.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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1/5
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Heart of Stone
(2023)
|
Joe George
|
If you’re just watching Heart of Stone between glances from your phone or as you fold your socks, then it’s reasonable to assume that Gadot is a glamorous movie star... But that’s never really good enough.
Posted Aug 11, 2023
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3/5
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Red, White & Royal Blue
(2023)
|
Rosie Fletcher
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A world where Stephen Fry is the king? Now that’s an idea to fall in love with.
Posted Aug 11, 2023
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2/5
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The Last Voyage of the Demeter
(2023)
|
Tony Sokol
|
The Last Voyage of the Demeter wants to be Alien on the high seas, but drifts into shark week.
Posted Aug 11, 2023
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2.5/5
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Meg 2: The Trench
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
|
This is easily Ben Wheatley’s least interesting film.
Posted Aug 03, 2023
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2.5/5
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Haunted Mansion
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
|
ou might have fun watching it, but it disperses into the ether fairly quickly, as evanescent as the 999 CG ghosts.
Posted Aug 02, 2023
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2.5/5
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The Beanie Bubble
(2023)
|
David Crow
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The film is not really about the beanie bubble, nor is it about the three women who have to split leading the story opposite Galifianakis. In the end, the movie is what it insists it is not; the story of a domineering, egomaniacal man-child.
Posted Aug 02, 2023
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3.5/5
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
(2023)
|
David Crow
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This latest reinvention of the amphibious IP is happily weird and gross to the point of renewed novelty.
Posted Aug 02, 2023
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3.5/5
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Barbie
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Gerwig stuffs the 12-inch box Mattel gave her with ideas, flourishes, and twists until it bursts into a kaleidoscopic rainbow of confetti. The aftermath makes for a bit of a candy-colored mess, but the remnants on the floor are an unmistakable original.
Posted Jul 20, 2023
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3.5/5
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Don Kaye
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Oppenheimer is bold, often daring, but never fully accessible either, which is both its strength and its biggest flaw. Like the enigmatic figure at its center, it's complicated to a fault.
Posted Jul 20, 2023
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4.5/5
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
(2023)
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Don Kaye
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Through his many cinematic triumphs (and a fair number of misfires), Tom Cruise has been painting his masterpiece. The Mission: Impossible series is that great labor.
Posted Jul 12, 2023
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2/5
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
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It gives me no pleasure to say Indy 5 is a crashing bore; a bloated, tepidly paced slog of a movie that attempts to recapture the glories of this franchise’s past in the same way someone might blow on the dying embers of a fire to get it roaring again.
Posted Jun 30, 2023
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4/5
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The Flash
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
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The Flash is everything that much of the last 10 years of DC-based movies have not been: It's fast-paced, character-driven, and, most importantly, in love with the comics and the iconic superheroes themselves.
Posted Jun 07, 2023
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3/5
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The Boogeyman
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Despite its sinister premise, The Boogeyman seems a bit spooked in its own right, nervous about rocking the boat or alienating its target audience, which is presumably closer in age to Sadie and Harper.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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4.5/5
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Not since those aforementioned early Raimi movies has the prospect of web-slinging elicited such genuine astonishment and joy, with Sony’s animation turning superhero battles into fluid, fast-moving art installations.
Posted Jun 02, 2023
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2.5/5
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The Little Mermaid
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
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With the exception of a few musical numbers, including a nicely choreographed “Under the Sea,” the film just oozes from scene to scene like a puddle of water creeping slowly across a floor.
Posted May 25, 2023
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2.5/5
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Fast X
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
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It’s obvious Moomoa's having a blast and, as we often say, acting in his own separate movie. The same cannot be said for the rest of the Fast cast, who know exactly what movie they're in and are starting to show signs of fatigue.
Posted May 18, 2023
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4/5
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Thank God that James Gunn is back in the MCU.
Posted May 03, 2023
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Evil Dead Rise
(2023)
|
David Crow
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The movie is like a demon vomiting on the boundary lines drawn by those who might insist movies must have morals. It may never be released on a VHS tape, but the story crafted by Evil Dead Rise just put some genuinely nasty video out into the world.
Posted Apr 23, 2023
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2.5/5
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Evil Dead Rise
(2023)
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Don Kaye
|
Kubrick’s expensive studio masterpiece and Raimi’s DIY indie scrappers, each referenced here, are about as far apart as one can get in this genre. However, both have a vision, and frankly the jury is still out on whether Cronin has one as well.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
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2.5/5
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Beau Is Afraid
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
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Aster said he came up with this script before he developed his first two horror features, and indeed it feels like the work of a younger filmmaker who wants to say everything he can in this one story because he doesn’t know if he’ll get another chance.
Posted Apr 20, 2023
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4.5/5
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Personality Crisis: One Night Only
(2022)
|
Tony Sokol
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It works as an introduction for the uninitiated, while slipping in just enough unearthed footage, genuine class, and hitherto lesser-known nuggets for lifelong devotees.
Posted Apr 15, 2023
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2.5/5
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Renfield
(2023)
|
David Crow
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The movie is a series of disoriented lunges between tones and genres that might only make sense if someone in the creative process is still intent on making something like “the Dark Universe” a thing.
Posted Apr 13, 2023
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3/5
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The Pope's Exorcist
(2023)
|
David Crow
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When Crowe speaks with an Italian accent, it's like Chico Marx has risen from the grave and come back with the swagger of Serpico.
Posted Apr 13, 2023
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3/5
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie
(2023)
|
David Crow
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As stewardship of a franchise multiple generations love, the handling is nothing short of a door-to-door white glove service. As an actual animated movie that needs to stand on its own, it’s derivative and barebones.
Posted Apr 04, 2023
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3.5/5
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Air
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
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This is also Affleck’s most confidently directed film since The Town, with the filmmaking giving the somewhat shaggy script and characters room to breathe.
Posted Apr 04, 2023
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4/5
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John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
|
Don Kaye
|
While all the cast acquit themselves well—McShane is dependably cynical, Skarsgård is deliciously evil, Brown is sinister and magisterial, and Adkins definitively steals his entire section of the movie—the standout out is Donnie Yen.
Posted Mar 23, 2023
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Self Reliance
(2023)
|
David Crow
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When it's over, I’m still not sure what to make of these characters, but I did laugh every time Tommy's punishment became more severe.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Scrambled
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Mostly though, the film is a bracing comedy where McKendrick works through some personal therapy by way of sardonic one-liners and gags in a rapid-fire script.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Satan Wants You
(2023)
|
David Crow
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It contextualizes for the modern eye this now quaint-seeming moral panic while also drawing striking parallels between the 1980s' religious hysteria with QAnon conspiracy theories that helped inspire a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol only a few years ago.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Problemista
(2023)
|
David Crow
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With frizzled hot pink hair and a relentless tenacity that is at times visualized as an actual dragon devouring poor waiters and receptionists who annoy her, Swinton portrays late-stage narcissism in its most maximalist, extravagant form.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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The New Americans: Gaming a Revolution
(2023)
|
Alec Bojalad
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It's hard to capture the chaotic energy of the internet in anything that’s not the internet but The New Americans: Gaming a Revolution comes pretty close.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Late Night With the Devil
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
The appeal is how lovingly the film recreates the look and tenor of '70s on-air gabfests. Dastmalchian in particular appears jazzed at channeling his inner-Dick Cavett with an easygoing, self-deprecating charm that belies unmistakable ambition.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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If You Were the Last
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Essentially a time loop movie about two people getting enough space to realize they're perfect for each other, If You Were the Last will never once surprise you in its 89-minute running time, and you'll be glad it didn't.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Flamin' Hot
(2023)
|
David Crow
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Flamin' Hot is so heavily processed and determined to avoid discomforting its consumer that you'll leave feeling unsatisfied and looking for cinematic nourishment from elsewhere.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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A Disturbance in The Force
(2023)
|
David Crow
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This movie remembers a time when the world was fuller because Star Wars was so lame, it was kind of cool.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Brooklyn 45
(2023)
|
David Crow
|
The real dread of this movie comes from how effectively the picture removes the glossy veneer of nostalgia, even for the Greatest Generation, in order to find true horror.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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