My editor informs me this week’s issue will be focused on media literacy. I don’t believe I could be accused of possessing said literacy and, as a writer of movie reviews for print media, could more aptly be called obsolete or deaf to the mewl and clamor of contemporary culture — perhaps a relic. But […]
Minor Theatre
Posted inArts + Scene
Ad Astra‘s Thoughtful Action
Review AD ASTRA. Back in the dark and distant past, when the word “independent” was first buzzily attached to American cinema on a widespread basis, there was a whole cable channel dedicated to it. IFC still exists, or so I am told, but in that creaky, bygone era, such upstarts had little to no budget […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Respect the Hustle
Review HUSTLERS is not a perfect movie. Of course not, such a thing does not exist. But it is a timely, important and overall very good one, and for that I guess I wish it could hit all the invisible, impossible marks required for greatness. Maybe I should be satisfied that it has managed significant […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Sucker’s Club
Review IT CHAPTER TWO. When I realized I would have to wait two years between It and It Chapter Two, I was disappointed. The first movie, released in 2017, was tone-perfect in how it portrayed the first half of Stephen King’s lengthy novel about childhood friends battling a supernatural clown for the soul of their […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Champ
Review PEANUT BUTTER FALCON. What I tend to think of as healthy skepticism is probably more likely pathological or diagnosable on some sort of spectrum — not particularly healthy, if I’m being honest. And even after a delightful summer of traveling and the passing of time (seeing remarkably few movies, actually), I felt compelled to […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Fucking Rich People
Review READY OR NOT. It did not escape me that David Koch, half of the political juggernaut that was the Koch brothers, died the same sunny Friday afternoon this film about the viciousness of an uber-wealthy family opened in Humboldt. The impact of the fictional Le Domas dynasty, built on family-friendly board games, is nothing […]
Posted inArts + Scene
See Good Boys with Your Mom/Grown Kid
Review GOOD BOYS. Because I spend time surfing and know a thing or two about the ocean, NCJ arts and features editor Jennifer Fumiko Cahill figured I should be the one to review 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. You could provide a fact check, she said. Set everyone straight on sharks, she said. I had no […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Comforting Fictions
Review THE FAREWELL. Lulu Wang’s The Farewell opens on a phone call between Billi (Awkwafina) in New York and her grandmother Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) in China. It’s a charming, relatable exchange with Nai Nai warning her granddaughter about the dangers she’s heard of in the city and Billi reassuring her. It’s also a volley […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Lady in Waiting
Review OPHELIA. As the title character of Ophelia tells us at the outset, “It is high time I should tell you my story myself.” So begins this re-telling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one that adds dimension and depth to its characters. Shakespeare fans will appreciate Ophelia but so will non-fans. It’s a story of empowerment and […]
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A Bloody Time Capsule
Review ONCE UPON A TIME … IN HOLLYWOOD. It’s been nearly four years since the release of Quentin Tarantino’s last movie The Hateful Eight (2015) and for many of us much of that time has played out like a chainsaw horror show set to a broken calliope loop; sort of like a Tarantino sequence, but charmless […]
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The Pretty Kitty has No Teeth
THE LION KING. By the time the original Lion King (1994) came out and caught fire, I had already started moving out of the animated feature lane (where I had only really spent a brief, though admittedly enjoyable, season). I was of just the right age that Pulp Fiction hit a lot harder that year, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Filmore to Hunter’s Point
Reviews The Last Black Man in San Francisco. The movie opens on a school-aged African American girl skipping happily down a street next to the bay. Inches away, be-hazmatted workers gingerly remove debris from the area around her feet. The scene is Hunter’s Point, a rarely talked about neighborhood of San Francisco where the U.S. […]