LONGLEGS. Uncharacteristically, I experienced little-to-no creeping cynicism before, during or after my time with Longlegs. As I walked into the theater, one of the staff suggested that I should approach the movie without expectations, mostly because its marketing campaign threatens to overshadow the very thing it is intended to promote. Not too much to worry […]
Minor Theatre
Posted inArts + Scene
Maxxxine‘s Bloody Point
MAXXXINE. Slashers, a storied genre that runs from the comic and campy to the psychologically complex, following the bloody progress of a (mostly) unseen killer as they cut down a cast with brutality and/or sometimes goofy creativity to enact vengeance or work out some issues, aren’t for everyone. Honestly, they mostly aren’t for me. As […]
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Apocalyptic Roots
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE. In the before times, when A Quiet Place (2018) was released, it seemed unlikely to spawn a series, much less to outlast and outwit the 800-pound gorillas that were essentially unbeatable at the box office and in the popular consciousness. But in a sort of “turnabout is fair play” moment, […]
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Quiet Movies, Big Feelings
HIT MAN. In my inscrutable-to-some fervor to defend Bad Boys: Ride or Die and the deliciously trashy legacy of that franchise, I failed to reserve enough column-inches and enthusiasm for another, quieter but no-less satisfying contribution to the amorphous agglomeration of late-stage American mainstream movies. In the same weekend that saw Will Smith as Mike […]
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The Importance of Bad Boys: Ride or Die
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. I was prepared to blame prevailing global conditions as much as my own skepticism for sleeping on Bad Boys for Life (2020) as long as I did. In sitting to revisit the franchise and attempt to organize my thoughts about it, though, I discovered that I could not, in fact, […]
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Trouble with the Kids
BABES. Despite the inescapable fact that pregnancy, birth and its alternatives have touched literally all of us, the subject has been largely shunted to the margins of contemporary cinema. As recently as the first decade of this strange, lamentable century, a “will they or won’t they” dramedy about a birth control mishap would not be […]
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Apocalypse at the Movie-plex
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA. A friend — and greater cineaste than I — having very recently watched and enjoyed Furiosa, conveyed to me his abiding concerns for the future of cinema. And, if we are to trust the recent, ubiquitous reports of box office “failure,” his fears could be justified. But, as likewise pertains […]
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Youthful Escapades
Attentive readers will note the conspicuous omission of this weekend’s new releases from this column; fair enough and an explanation may be in order. First and most importantly, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black looks pretty bad. I hope I’m wrong and it is actually a delicately crafted, insightful examination of a troubled, […]
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Rocky Evolutions
KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. It’s been a while since the most recent installment in this, the ongoing pre-history of the Apes saga. That movie, War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), took us on a self-aware journey into the heart of darkness, complete with Woody Harrelson doing his best Colonel Kurtz. […]
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The Fall Guy Takes it on the Chin
THE FALL GUY. At the risk of speaking more reboots into existence, the storeroom of old media is not always the refuge of the unimaginative. For it to work, some part of its original DNA that still resonates must be preserved, while others are tweaked to make it new. Listen, Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida was […]
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Challengers Rises to the Challenge
CHALLENGERS. Although never a proper tennis fan, I would, in my younger, dumber years, have considered myself something of a casual appreciator. As country kids, old tennis rackets were useful indeed for seeing how high into the air one could drive small rocks. And a case of tennis balls might as well have been a […]
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Team Efforts
THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. When they’re really cooking, Guy Ritchie movies can deliver a thrilling, funny, well-appointed (if slightly vapid) pastiche of Brit-crime in a heightened, mid-century American vein. That he has produced more (artistic) misses than hits is perhaps a function of over-productivity or the demands of a myopic market place. Fortunately, it’s […]