Reviews MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT. Whether or not we need more missions impossible remains the subject of debate. Despite the retention of stars Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames, and the audacity to weather two decades and produce six (!) installments, the franchise exists primarily to outdo the other tent-poles with stunt sequences and gadgetry. And, […]
The Miniplex
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Tripping
Reviews SORRY TO BOTHER YOU. I woke up thinking about this movie, which proves hard to forget. It leaves tracers behind the eyes, like staring at a too-bright neon light in a too-dark, too-late barroom, vestiges of its vibrant, driving, pointed, flawed, ugly, beautiful, street-style visual poetry. It’s appropriate for the directorial debut of Boots Riley, […]
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Skyscraper Bites
Reviews Skyscraper A show of hands then, for anyone in attendance who hasn’t seen Die Hard (1988). I’d be inclined to ask you all to leave, as it would seem we have very little to talk about. Seeing as you are the ostensible intended audience for writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s “homage,” though, I guess you ought […]
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Comic Book Movies Can Be Fun
Reviews Ant-Man and the Wasp. Based on my many overlong, one-note lamentations about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its unchecked consumption of cinema, one might reasonably expect that: 1) I wouldn’t particularly look forward to the prospect of another installment, regardless of the hero, but also 2) the return of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man/Scott Lang might […]
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Mr. Nice Guy
Reviews SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO. It might make sense to preface this, if only to lend some additional context. Sicario (2015) is for me a deeply soothing, satisfying experience, a cinematic comfort that lives on a short list of movies I can put on anytime — usually late at night, usually after a few […]
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From Another Time
Reviews JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM. Color me … skeptical but I had reservations. I know, I know, I’m not leading with my customary font of optimism but rest easy, there’s something coming about a drunk minister wrestling with suicide a little later. I’ve enjoyed more than my share of Jurassic entertainment. In younger, simpler days […]
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#FamiliesBelongTogether
Reviews THE INCREDIBLES 2. Sequels, remakes, reboots and “remaginings” of movies happen faster than any good soul can keep up. That’s what makes the arrival of The Incredibles 2 so remarkable: Does it seem like a long time since the original — a wonderfully entertaining film — arrived on the scene, or is it you? […]
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A Girl’s Best Friend
Reviews OCEAN’S 8. Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 (2001), itself a remake of a Rat Pack vehicle, and a franchise that’s been uneven at best, isn’t old enough for an all-lady spin-off to provoke rending of clothing over ruined childhoods, which is a nice change. Director Gary Ross may not have Soderbergh’s pacing or the edits […]
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The Young and the Feckless
Reviews In back-to-back news cycles swirling with tenuous international political relationships, a reported death toll of nearly 5,000 Americans in the wake of Hurricane Maria and an investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia, it might surprise the casual observer that the jokes and comments of a handful of female comedians have garnered […]
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When Han Met Chewie
Reviews SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY. Every addition to the Star Wars canon has shouldered massive expectations in terms of earnings and the continuation of a mythic narrative that more than one generation feels ownership of. A single stroke of casting, a line of dialogue, might ruin fanboy childhoods, serve up resistance metaphors for our […]
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Franchise in Anti-hero’s Clothing
Reviews Deadpool 2. We live in a weird, expanding world of sequels. Defined by diminishing returns, they have also become a certainty: Anything that generates revenue on a certain scale will be quickly followed by as many follow-ups as the market will bear. This newly risen reality can be exciting (more of a good thing, […]
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Free Gabrielle Union and Melissa McCarthy
Reviews BREAKING IN. For longer than I’d really care to countenance (probably the release of Bring It On in 2000) I’ve found Gabrielle Union to be a consummately compelling actor who should be in major releases with her name above the title. There are vestigial traces of the old weak knees, mild palpitations playground crush […]