Years ago now, some friends of mine were at a shooting range taking some target practice. They were alone in the place, except for a pair of women, one of whom was hurriedly re-familiarizing herself with the operation of her pistol because, as she had very openly explained to my friends, her estranged husband was […]
Broadway Cinema
Posted inArts + Scene
Honey, I Shrunk Downsizing and Jumanji Can’t Fill the Screen
DOWNSIZING. A sprawling sci-fi satire, ironically, Downsizing can’t seem to shrink its ambition into a manageable story. Alexander Payne’s (Election, Sideways) take on American ambition, class inequity, climate change, consumerism, predatory dream capitalism and the end of the world might’ve fit if its ostensible hero Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) wasn’t such a milquetoast. His struggle […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Force is Strong With This One
Star Wars: The Last Jedi. A dispatch from the outer fringe, where I have, after much struggle and soul-searching, come to the conclusion that it is perfectly fine to be a Star Wars fan without being a super-fan. The release of The Last Jedi brought back some of the sense memories and reluctance that hampered […]
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Beautiful Losers
Reviews THE DISASTER ARTIST. So … The Room. When I became aware of The Room, sometime in the mid-2000s, it was only peripherally. I was still avidly reading Sight & Sound and FilmComment and Movie Maker, spending a fair amount of time at the video store and building an almost impenetrable Netflix queue; I was […]
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Signs of the Times
Reviews THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. I have struggled to understand and articulate my feelings about this, the third feature from acclaimed and award-winning playwright-turned-slightly-less-acclaimed-but-still-award-winning writer-director of movies Martin McDonagh. It calls back to his debut In Bruges (2008), with its balance of goofiness and emotional desolation, but also to the more recent Seven Psychopaths […]
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Name Game
Reviews LADY BIRD is the type of movie (to this my wife will attest) that would, not so many years ago, have sent me hurtling back into a depression that would require weeks-to-months of regular therapy to re-establish anything resembling a “healthy” emotional baseline. Granted, to assign it a type does a disservice to any […]
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What the Doctor Ordered
Reviews WONDER. In word and more frequently in deed, I may or may not have conveyed/made a lifestyle of an aversion to things wholesome. But living as we now do in a time defined by venality and exclusionary thinking, when we are “governed” by lecherous reptilian billionaires with no apparent regard for the well-being of […]
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Back on the Train
Reviews MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. From the first trailer, it struck me as a little odd that a murder mystery set in 1934 would be positioned as a peak-season prestige release. Granted, the credentials of the cast and crew befit such a thing and adapting an Agatha Christie novel — even for the third […]
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Not All Heroes Wear Frowns
Reviews THOR: RAGNAROK. I’ve tried to find at least something to like about each addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe; this has proven easier in some cases than others. By and large, the movies are entertaining, expensive looking and well acted, but they also tend toward over-length, weak plots and debilitating Chronic Seriousness. That last […]
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Sending a Message
Reviews SUBURBICON has become the focus of much recent attention for doing Paramount’s worst wide-release box office business, ever. The surprising element in this is not the movie’s poor performance; rather, it’s the confounding fact that Paramount put it in a position to fail as dramatically as it has. Who could have possibly thought that […]
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Hot Shots
Reviews ONLY THE BRAVE. Director Joseph Kosinski’s last feature Oblivion (2013) left me with mixed feelings: beautifully made from a technical standpoint, vividly imagined, well cast and acted, and yet its story came apart midway through and never recovered. It was an exercise in frustration, in potential greatness lost to a screenplay that needed just […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Stuck with Yourself
Reviews HAPPY DEATH DAY. I was reticent at the prospect of another PG-13 horror movie. More often than not, the tamer rating means the movie has been defanged just enough to sell tickets to unaccompanied minors, which almost inevitably means something of substance has been removed, reinforcing that commerce will always trump art. Or it […]