Category: ★½
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Space Sweepers is a special effects spectacular. Director Jo keeps up the pace during the CGI space battles, but always takes the time to be excited at how the scene plays. The film’s set in a post-climate change future where all the rich people live on a giant satellite (with Richard Armitage as the “casting…
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri needs a lot of passes. On one hand, writer and director McDonagh writes really shallow female characters outside protagonist Frances McDormand (well, part-time protagonist). On the other, he’s got a really shallow way of characterizing racists—they’re literally too dumb to know better. And then he’s got this weird way of…
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—it’s pronounced Gee-kyl, incidentally, as in Fronkensteen—is a stunning disappointment. It’s difficult to know where to begin, given the film is about a scientist, Fredric March, who’s really horny for his fiancée, Rose Hobart (and she’s horny for him too), but her dad, Halliwell Hobbes, thinks March’s a no good horn-dog…
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Parade somehow loses the plot after intermission. Given the plot is just a night at the circus, usually showcasing director Tati’s pantomiming, it shouldn’t be possible to lose such a thing. But Parade does. Maybe intermission not coming halfway through the film should be a sign. And at least the post-intermission material sails by relatively…
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Sean Connery, who’s so important to the workings of Hunt for Red October he could easily be “and special guest star” credit instead of top-billed, has his last scene on the bridge of his ship, giving a very Captain Kirk read of a quote. It’s something about sailing and it’s got to break the cultural…
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The best scene in The Falcon and the Snowman is when Sean Penn tries to sell his Russian handlers—a wonderfully bemused David Suchet and Boris Lyoskin—on a coke enterprise. They’ve got embassies all over, Penn figures, so why not make some money moving blow through them up from Peru or whatever. It’s maybe halfway through…
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Once I’m Thinking of Ending Things makes it painfully, obviously clear what’s actually going on with nondescript Oklahoma intellectual artsy girl Jessie Buckley, her pseudo-intellectual, experience matters more but wait is actually smart or is he boyfriend Jesse Plemons, his weird parents—Toni Collette (who somehow manages to be the only person in the not-untalented cast…
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Most of Concussion is inoffensive Oscar bait. Only for the dudes though. And only for the actors. None of the technicals. Will Smith is the main Oscar bait; he’s a crusading African immigrant coroner who’s a medical super genius who wholesomely communes with his cadavers before respectfully cutting them up. The film shows Smith talking…
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The Man with Two Brains does not age well. It’s a case study in not aging well, even more so because when the three writers—director Reiner, star Steve Martin, and George Gipe—can’t figure out how to do an ending so they just do an extended fat joke… well, it’s hard to continuing giving the film…
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At no point does Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears introduce viewer unfamiliar with star Essie Davis’s television show, to which this film’s a sequel, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.” The movie opens with an action sequence setting up Davis as an exquisitely dressed combination of Indiana Jones and James Bond. The action—a title card…
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Pennies from Heaven is about how being a woman—particularly in the 1930s—is awful because you exist entirely for male consumption. If not sexually, then as production. The film’s supposed to be about how life’s just unfair for dreamers, in this case lead Steve Martin, who’s just trying to make the American Dream work for him;…
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Overnight is occasionally amusing, often mortifying, never contextualized enough to be interesting, and always compelling. But it’s compelling only if you’re somewhat familiar with the subject of the film, Troy Duffy. Specifically, Duffy’s directorial debut, The Boondock Saints. In 1997, Harvey Weinstein bought the script for Duffy to direct at Miramax and less than a…
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Elite Squad is about how hard it is to be a fascist stormtrooper in Rio de Janeiro, because not only do you have to deal with militarized criminals, corrupt cops, smooth-talking (and sexy) liberals, you also might have a wife who doesn’t like you being a fascist stormtrooper or some dead kid’s mom come ask…
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The middle of Train to Busan is excellent. The first act is iffy, the ending is forced, but the middle is where the film excels. It’s where director Yeon just gets to do action, not getting slowed down with the humanity of it all (which he’s uneven on), and just executes these breathtaking action suspense…
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About seventy minutes into 48 Hrs., Nick Nolte apologizes to Eddie Murphy for the racial slurs he’s been calling him since Murphy showed up in the movie. Nolte’s just doing his job, he explains, “keeping him down,” which is an unintentionally honest moment about cops and Black men. Murphy nods to it, but says, “that…
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Cronos opens with an English-narrated prologue about a sixteenth century alchemist making a device to prolong his life. The uncredited narrator is wanting, the music isn’t good—it doesn’t seem like the rest of Javier Álvarez’s score, but who knows (well, the distributor would); it’s a change for the U.S. theaters and a bad one. So…
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Troop Zero is heartwarming but not too heartwarming. It doesn’t promise the stars as much as it promises a gradual slide to fairness; it promises redemption to some but not the ones who really need it. It avoids any seriousness to instead provide consistent, constant entertainment. Often in the form of amusing montage sequences with…
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Inherit the Viper is an unfortunately titled but acceptably mediocre crime drama about rural siblings Margarita Levieva, Josh Hartnett, and Owen Teague running an opioid business. Levieva’s the merciless boss, Hartnett’s the reluctant muscle, Teague’s the enthusiastic but uninvolved teenager. Everything’s going fine—well, outside the occasional fatal overdose for customers—until Teague decides he’s got to…
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Emma keeps misplacing things. For a long stretches, it misplaces second-billed Toni Collette (who goes from being the subject of the first half to an afterthought in the most of the second half to just a plot foil in the third act). There’s also lead Gwyneth Paltrow’s painting. The film opens with Paltrow’s paintings of…
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On one hand, with the Wojciech Kilar score, Bram Stoker’s Dracula can get away with just about anything. On the other, with Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves playing leads… well, it needs something to help it get away with anything. It helps neither Ryder or Reeves are the actual star of the film. Neither is…
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Haunted cop Chang Chen gets a chance to avenge his dead partner Li Guangjie and play hero for the woman (Ni Ni) he loves but doesn’t think he deserves because he’s a haunted cop when the villains who killed Li return. Further adversity comes in the form of a blizzard, which they’re all stranded in…
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Surprisingly good TARZAN outing–it’s consecutive action thrills as Tarzan (Gordon Scott) hunts British bad guys, led by Anthony Quayle. Along the way, Scott teams up with Sara Shane to give the picture some romance. It’s mostly romance banter and it works. The real star is Quayle, who’s phenomenal. He gets to Ahab out. Sean Connery…
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Surprisingly solid TV thriller about veteran cop Lloyd Bridges losing it when he finds out son-in-law Frank Converse is stepping out on daughter Sallie Shockley. As Bridges spirals more and more out of control, his partner (Murray Hamilton) starts investigating him and it ends up being up to Converse to mitigate the fallout. Simple enough…
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After a strong build-up, mostly thanks to Jack Palance’s great lead performance, this heist picture implodes in the third act. He’s an ex-con, sprung (by a delightful Lon Chaney Jr.) to knock-off a resort hotel’s jewelry vault. If he can get his young punk sidekicks in shape for it, which seems questionable with Shelley Winters…
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Often visually breathtaking documentary about rock climber Alex Honnold’s potentially suicidal attempt to “free solo” (climb alone without ropes or gear) Yosemite’s El Capitan, something never before accomplished. The filmmakers don’t have a strong narrative (or point, outside showcasing Honnold’s possibly brain abnormality related lack of self preservation and the great outdoors). Also hurts Honnold’s…
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Two hours plus personification of the phrase, “I guess that was okay,” which–given the twenty-five years director Gilliam’s been trying to get it made–is a bit of a letdown. Both Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce are fine in their lead roles, but neither are anywhere near charismatic enough to carry the film. Supporting damsels Joana…
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Constantly disappointing light comedy about turn of the twentieth century newspaperman Dick Powell getting tomorrow’s headlines today and trying to use it to his best advantage, initially involving his wooing of magic act assistant Linda Darnell. Unfortunately Darnell’s barely relevant to the actual plotting… heck, Powell’s often just along for the ride–Jack Oakie, in a…
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When Richard Farnsworth’s estranged and offscreen brother suffers a stroke, Farnsworth wants to reconcile but can’t drive and stubbornly has to go see him on his own. So he hopes on his riding mower and off to Wisconsin (from Iowa) he goes. He has some problems along the way, runs into some wayward folk who…
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Way too chaste to be effective “potboiler” (maybe a Kansas potboiler?) about ne’er-do-well William Holden (playing somewhat younger than his 37 years) coming to a small town to beg a job off college pal Cliff Robertson, only to get in between Robertson and his best gal, local restless beauty queen Kim Novak. Excellent supporting performances…
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Moonfleet is a very strange film. The protagonist is ten year-old Jon Whiteley; the film starts with him arriving in the coastal village, Moonfleet. It’s the mid-eighteenth century. Moonfleet is a dangerous, scary place. Sort of. Whiteley is in town on his own because his mother has died (Dad is a mystery, but nowhere near…
The Stop Button 