'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' culminates in emotion payoffs so satisfying that once the end credits roll the most rational response is applause.
Read More »‘Tetris’ doesn’t put its pieces together
A more refined version of 'Tetris' could have been as great as the game was on Gameboy. This version is as easily forgotten as the Atari one.
Read More »‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ and the curse of franchise art
'Honor Among Thieves' is a good movie. It would be good even without the 'Dungeons & Dragons' branding. But it wouldn't succeed without it.
Read More »REVIEW: Bigger isn’t better in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’
Instead of making a more important 'Ant-Man' movie, 'Quantumania' makes 'Ant-Man' less entertain. There isn't even a Luis appearance!
Read More »Pop Mythology’s 10 Best Films of 2022
After what felt like a very long year with several long movies, here are the films which best helped pass that time.
Read More »“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is another great time with more horrible people
'Glass Onion' crystallizes what to expect from a Knives Out Mystery: Benoit Blanc, talented ensembles, and mysteries where even malapropisms are intended.
Read More »REVIEW: ‘Avatar: The Way of Water,’ a five buck story with billion dollar effects
In 2009, spectacle filmmaking reached a new high with James Cameron’s Avatar. The same filmmaker who’d previously dominated the all-time box office with Titanic returned to the science-fiction/action genre he’d previous found success in with both Aliens and Terminator 2 (a film which had a profound effect on me personally). …
Read More »REVIEW: ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ would be funny if it weren’t completely true
It is bizarre, and frankly disappointing, that a biopic about an artist famous for song parodies wouldn't have some element of parody itself.
Read More »REVIEW: Death is not the end for ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’
What made Chadwick Boseman’s death in August 2020 such a shock wasn’t just that he was so young (43), so vital (having just starred in the first billion-dollar black-led film), so beloved (again, billion-dollar film) and so talented (with pre-release Oscar buzz for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), but that it …
Read More »REVIEW: ‘Black Adam’ is Snyderverse without Snyder
Black Adam has every trademark of a Snyder film: striking visuals, meaty men, undeveloped themes, epic lines that mean nothing, and filters.
Read More »REVIEW: ‘Blonde’ is not what we want of Marilyn. It’s what we made of her.
Let’s face it, the world needs another Marilyn Monroe biopic about as much as we need another prestige film about the British royal family. Few Hollywood figures have been as thoroughly and exhaustively examined on film, with more than twenty actresses either playing Marilyn Monroe or playing characters that are …
Read More »‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ reminds us that we are limitless
Everything Everywhere All at Once shows just how far human creativity can go when unshackled by studio or artistic expectation.
Read More »REVIEW: ‘Nope’ is more debate than dread
The brilliance of 'Nope' is that all interpretations are valid. The problem with 'Nope' is that interpretation makes suspense invalid.
Read More »REVIEW: ‘Prey’ is better than the franchise from which it spawned
If there is any film that is far better than the franchise from which it spawned, it's Prey. Maybe in time, it too will be considered a classic.
Read More »REVIEW: The best description of ‘The Gray Man’ comes from Chris Evans’s character: “Boring”
Despite having the pieces of a good action film, the best description of the 'The Gray Man' comes from Chris Evan himself: Boring.
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