Reviews 6UNDERGROUND. More than six years ago, I reviewed Pain & Gain (2013) and, in so doing, established that I will not, whether out of actual enjoyment or simple contrarianism, participate in the popular wholesale condemnation of Michael Bay movies. I find much of his work arch and unenjoyable, but there are simple pleasures in […]
The Miniplex
Posted inArts + Scene
Long Goodbyes
Reviews THE IRISHMAN. This is not exactly a new release. But as art and entertainment now live deathlessly — like identity, real or manufactured, and all of our malfeasance and misadventure — in the digital ether, I’m not too worried about it. Nor do I find it bothersome that the movie’s Netflix release might somehow […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Knives Out is Razor Sharp
Reviews KNIVES OUT. Classic mystery fans are an odd lot. We gleefully watch fancy people in drafty estates stab, shoot, garotte, bash, poison and shove one another down ornate staircases. It’s a genre that rewards conformity and low stakes: the parsing of clues, red herrings and the big reveal. Do I even want to see […]
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Life Underground
Reviews PARASITE. We are truly living in a golden age of scammers. Behold the sea of catfishing schemes, the jet-setting Anna Sorokin enjoyed on the tabs of rich Manhattanites by posing as a German heiress and the puffed-up conman we’ve installed in the White House, from whence he uses his position to fill his coffers […]
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Buckle Up
Reviews FORD VS. FERRARI. Motorsport in the middle 1960s stood on the precipice of change: still hewing to its daredevil origins, it remained delicate and brutal, homebuilt and homicidal. It was a time when a little upstart car company off the beach of Los Angeles, helmed by a former world-class racing driver turned failed chicken […]
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Doctor Sleep’s Diminishing Returns
Reviews DOCTOR SLEEP. Stephen King famously hates Stanley Kubrick’s version of his novel The Shining (book 1977, movie 1980). It’s not my place to say he’s wrong but … he is. While Kubrick’s is a liberal adaptation, therein lies the whole damn point. Books are not movies, nor the reverse, and this business of simply […]
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All Hail
Reviews DOLEMITE IS MY NAME. To fans who identify Eddie Murphy by his early movies — 48 Hrs. (1982), Trading Places (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Coming To America (1988) — and/or his legendary if, in hindsight, occasionally lamentable stand-up specials Delirious (1983) and Raw (1987), and his run on Saturday Night Live (1980-84), […]
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Surrounded by Monsters
Reviews ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP. I liked Zombieland (2009) well enough: Its clever, comic tone, distinctive characters, strong performances and self-assured but restrained visual style made it stand out. Enough so that I came away hoping director Ruben Fleisher might be at the vanguard of some burgeoning action-comedy movement. Not so, as it turns out. And, […]
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Meeting Your Connection
Reviews JEXI. Writers have been trying to get a handle on the notion of artificial intelligence — giving it an assortment of names, down the decades — for, oh, the better part of two centuries now. (I think it’s fair to include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a very early example and I don’t care to […]
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Joker‘s House of Mirrors
JOKER. I am aware of the ex post facto politicization of Joker but I have not — will not — wade into that swamp. All art is a product of its time and place, of course, and this is a dark movie borne of dark times. To ascribe intent, though, to allow context to subsume […]
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Through the Eyesof Native Activists
I started my review of From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: A reporter’s journey, screening at the Eureka Theater on Oct. 19, with some trepidation because of its local connection. Journalist and director Kevin McKiernan’s documentary looks at Indian actions at two different points in history. It focuses partly on the American Indian Movement, the […]
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Confessions of a Movie Nerd
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 […]