We learn many things in SPIDERMAN FAR FROM HOME. We learn that not only are the Dutch polyglots, but also that they are the nicest people on earth, even when a private jet is making hash of their iconic tulip fields. We learn that saving the planet is just as important as getting that first… Read More »
THE BEST OF ENEMIES
We know going in to THE BEST OF ENEMIES that there will be soul-searching and redemption. The challenge for director Robin Bissell in adapting this true-life story from the book by Osha Gray Davidson was to frame doing the right thing in terms that truly demonstrate to the audience the temper of the times that… Read More »
MEN IN BLACK INTERNATIONAL
When a once profitable film franchise begins to fade, the studios that have reaped the benefits of same are left with little choice about how to handle it. With so much money at stake, both in ticket sales and ancillary merchandise on the line, they can’t just let it slip away with dignity. No, they… Read More »
DARK PHOENIX
Is this really how it all ends? A ragged bit of doggerel to finish out the cinematic X-Men saga? Or at least this incarnation of same. What started as a trenchant study of human nature at its best and worst, as well as a scathingly good time at the movies has, with DARK PHOENIX, devolved… Read More »
GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
For most of GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, the eponymous monsters pretty much go about their business without taking any notice of the small, scuttling humans that flee in their wake. For their part, the humans, when they are not scuttling, are providing the exposition between bouts of special effects eruptions. Hence, if you don’t… Read More »
ALADDIN
The live-action version of ALADDIN does many things, including blurring the line between animation and live-action, not unlike the once and future AVATAR. It is more animation than live action and perhaps at some point there should be specific designation for cinematic efforts of this kind. But I digress. Most of what makes the film… Read More »
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
The stakes have been raised so many times with event flicks that, when approaching one, hope is always tempered with experience about what to expect, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson. With AVENGERS: ENDGAME, though, hope wins out. The spectacle is everything it should be, and the story, of necessity a meandering thing, is nonetheless sustained by… Read More »
SHAZAM!
There is a wondrously cheesy sincerity to SHAZAM! that makes its weak spots irrelevant. It is, in many ways, as pure of heart as its champion, and just as giddy about discovering that magic is real. Plus, there’s that flaming Santa running for his life during the climactic final face-off between good and evil.
ISN’T IT ROMANTIC
It’s a clever premise that propels ISN’T IT ROMANTIC, using the idiom of rom-coms to give us just that, but a rom-com that affirms that the regular Joe and Jane out there can also be the star. One that deconstructs every cliché with self-aware relish, while also staying open to the magic of true love.… Read More »
THE UPSIDE
It is with great relief that I report on an American remake of a fine French film that doesn’t drain me of the will to live. After DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS and FATHER’S DAY, the travesties of which haunt me to this very day, Neil Burger’s THE UPSIDE captures most of the essence of what made… Read More »
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