Cocaine is a helluva pic-a-nic basket! Black bear. White powder. Black comedy. When a drug runner dumps his airplane cargo of cocaine bricks over a Georgia forest, a black bear ingests some, and becomes as obsessed with finding more blow as Yogi Bear in his quest for pic-a-nic baskets. Only more junkie. As he finds more bricks and eats them, … Read More
MEG 2: THE TRENCH
Scraping the bottom of the trench. Jason Statham gets ONE semi-hearted jutsu scene at the beginning of MEG 2: THE TRENCH, then it’s just a dumb fish movie from there… If you want a shark movie that’s stupid, try SHARKNADO. For a shark movie that’s boring, try THE MEG. If you want a shark movie that’s boring AND stupid, then … Read More
THE POPE’S EXORCIST
No Sympathy for the Devil. It’s actually easy to tell if your house is haunted: it isn’t. Grow up! — Jimmy Carr, comedian. Supposedly a tale from the “real-life files” of Father Gabriel Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican (from 1986-2000), THE POPE’S EXORCIST follows Amorth in a 1987 case as he exorcises a young boy possessed by Mick Jagger … Read More
BLACK ADAM
So much potential, so little Fate… HENRY CAVILL IS BACK! No, wait – aw shit! – he’s gone again… Black Adam awakens from a 5000-year slumber. And only James Bond can sing him back to sleep. Born from the same magic as Captain Marvel (i.e. by pronouncing the word “SHAZAM!”), ancient protector Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson) is awakened by archaeologist Adrianna … Read More
65
Kylo Ren: Before The Dark Side. 65 million years ago, Kylo Ren crash-lands on Earth the day before the asteroid hits. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, exuding Keanu energy, leaves his home planet Somaris on an interstellar mission that would separate him from his ailing daughter (Chloe … Read More
OPPENHEIMER 2023
The REAL Quantum Mania. Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER follows the “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer, as he gathers geniuses, cockblocks politicians, and bangs mistresses. A breakneck political thriller with loads of intrigue and dramatic flourish, with an award-winning performance by Cillian Murphy (PEAKY BLINDERS) as the titular physicist, who delved into the quantum realm and actually conquered it. … Read More
CREED III
The Winner That Became a Winner. Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) is the Heavyweight Champion of the World. He retires. Someone else wins the title. So he UN-retires to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World again, winning a fight that he never had to enter. Where’s the journey? The plot of CREED III seems… inconsequential. Of course, the screenwriters … Read More
ELVIS 2022
Elvis: The Man, The Legend, The Manager? Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS crams the rise and fall of rock ‘n roll legend Elvis Presley into a questionable biopic – because it’s told from the POV of his manager! Tom Hanks (under obese makeup) plays Colonel Tom Parker, the enigmatic manager who shepherded Elvis into the stratosphere, in an astounding performance only slightly … Read More
TOP GUN: MAVERICK
Highway To The Ager Zone. Exciting? CHECK. Emotional? CHECK. Goddamit, I really wanted to make gay jokes about this movie! But TOP GUN: MAVERICK, even with its hokey premise and neanderthal plot, really is an exciting cinematic engulfment, tearing us headlong into azure space with those magnificent men (and women now too!) in their flying machines. Ace fighter pilot from … Read More
NOPE 2022
Probing your mind, not your anus. A renowned horse trainer and his sister experience strange happenings on their farm. They soon discover the horses are being spooked by something Not Of Planet Earth. Writer-director Jordan Peele subverts our expectations with such an original story in NOPE that it catches us off-guard. Yes, there is something extra-terrestrial prancing around in the … Read More
YOU PEOPLE 2023
Wake up and smell the sensitivity. Ezra (Jonah Hill), a jewish man, meets and woos a black girl, Amira (Lauren London), to the horror of her strict muslim father, and to the delight of his ingratiating parents. And we’re stuck watching the same tired romcom, rebooted for gen-z. I don’t know why I thought YOU PEOPLE would be anything more … Read More
DIO: DREAMERS NEVER DIE
A Dark In The Rainbow. I could have been a dreamer / I could have been the one to fly / I always could have been a dreamer / ‘Cause dreamers never die, no!… — Dio, I Could Have Been A Dreamer (Album: Dream Evil) He saved Ritchie Blackmore, then he saved Black Sabbath, which propelled him into his own … Read More
HOUSE OF GUCCI
Yoko Gucci. Lady Gaga stars as Patrizia Reggiani, one of the world’s greatest gold-diggers (alongside Heather Mills, Anna Nicole Smith and Melania Trump). From a poor Italian family, Patrizia manipulates her way into THE HOUSE OF GUCCI in 1972, marrying Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), heir to the Gucci fashion empire. Not content to sit on the sidelines and earn a … Read More
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION
Insectovorus Plotarmordon. Dinosaurs are everywhere. Loosed on the world in 2018’s FALLEN KINGDOM, they’re now as ubiquitous as cats and dogs in JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION. The stars of JURASSIC WORLD, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, are teamed alongside JURASSIC PARK legacy players Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, to take down Biosyn, the Big Bad Corp messing with … Read More
TROLL 2022
Norway’s Godzilla. There was the Norwegian thriller TROLL HUNTER in 2010, an enjoyable modern take on the ancient fairy tale legends. Now Norway blasts out TROLL, an even more grounded, more thrilling, more gargantuan meshing of ancient legend with modern warfare… So… Is Norway cornering the market on troll IP? During an excavation through a mountain in Dovre, Norway, a … Read More
THE BATMAN 2022
Knight’s in Black Battin’. A young Batman, in his second year of fighting crime, feels futility mounting in his quest to rid Gotham of corruption. When he is enlisted to help Lieutenant Jim Gordon against a terrorist known as The Riddler who is killing politicians, he begins to question how high up the corruption goes, and is confronted with … Read More
FATHER OF THE BRIDE 2022
Latin remake for a new audience… of rich white people. I love Andy Garcia. I’d watch him in any piece of crap. Even crap like FATHER OF THE BRIDE, the 2022 Latin remake of Steve Martin’s 1991 upper middle-class remake of the 1950 Spencer Tracy white privilege classic. The story (written by Matt Lopez, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE 2010) might have … Read More
SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME
Not Tingling. After Tony Stark’s death (in AVENGERS: ENDGAME – c’mon, where you been?), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) bequeaths Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) the command of all Stark’s tech, via a pair of magic sunglasses. Five minutes later, Parker relinquishes his superhero status to chase after panty (the SUPERMAN II syndrome), and hands over the glasses to interdimensional stranger … Read More
NO TIME TO DIE
First Bond To Die. Daniel Craig’s last ever Bond. Is it too gauche to say he goes out… with a BANG? NO TIME TO DIE is a handsome robust conclusion to the Daniel Craig Bond adventure, something the Bond franchise has never done for its other leading spies. After wrapping SPECTRE (2015), with Daniel’s admission that he would rather eat … Read More
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Dog of a film. A meandering story with no throughlines, no payoffs and no plot, that everyone says we have to love, because it’s gay. And that’s totally gay. THE POWER OF THE DOG is simply boring, pretentious, attempted art-cinema, for faux-sophisticates and LGBTQ to fawn over and tease out psychodrama and social messages. About a ranch-hand in 1925 Montana, … Read More