When Immovable Corruption Meets Unstoppable Corruption. MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE is a clickbait title. It tells us it’s going to push the mainstream narrative that FBI Associate Director William Mark Felt singlehandedly brought down the corrupt Nixon administration in 1974, by leaking anonymously to the press during Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Nicknamed “Deep Throat” by … Read More
BLADE RUNNER 2049
I’m too sexy for my existential crisis. He’s a BLADE RUNNER in 2049. And he’s a Replicant – a robot that resembles humans. And he hunts older-model Replicants that are not as gorgeous as him. And – unlike the last guy – he’s terrific at his job! Ryan Gosling is Agent K, a Nexus-9 Replicant, the newest products of the … Read More
THE HERETICS
Seemin’ Demon. A young girl is pursued by heretics to sacrifice to their demon, and is saved by a heretic to the heretics. I have a beef with the title, THE HERETICS. Heretics are classified as such when they go against established religious dogma; the term is especially applicable to baptized Catholics who believe anything other than the “truth” established … Read More
THE BYE BYE MAN
Horror? Buh-bye. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Say what? THE BYE BYE MAN. D’oh! The more you think about him, the closer he gets. You see things that aren’t there. You don’t see things that are there. He makes you kill people. Or kill yourself. Or something else might kill you. So, basically, just whatever then… “And you die … Read More
BEYOND SKYLINE
As told from the cattle’s point of view… BEYOND SKYLINE makes the same mistake as its predecessor SKYLINE (2010), a story about an existential threat, dumbed down to punching and lasers. The “poignant” throughline in BEYOND is a father fighting to regain his son. Goes from poignant to kooky when he’s fighting to get his son back from extra-terrestrial aliens. … Read More
KILLING GROUND
KILLING GROUND is killing it. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has tainted American storytelling so badly that even in a brilliant movie called UNFORGIVEN (1992), though all the characters do in fact remain unforgiven, yet the lead character finds redemption. So foreign movies, unbound by the juvenile strictures of the contradictory MPAA, are like a cold bucket of … Read More
DARKNESS RISING
Terrifying Inadequacy. Three 20-somethings explore a decrepit house and die from ghosts. So it’s a happy ending. Because we started rooting for the ghosts about five minutes in. Blond valley girl Madison (Tara Holt), drags her non-actor boyfriend Jake (Bryce Johnson) and bestie Izzy (Katrina Law) to the cranky old house of her youth, which is scheduled for demolition. Madison’s … Read More
GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET
Godzilla Vs. Hipster-saurus. Rejoice, Godzilla fans! There are no less than THREE Godzilla timelines currently roaring through Earth’s spacetime biosphere. There is the Legendary Pictures reboot timeline, starting with GODZILLA (2014), Toho Company’s chilling redesign reboot, SHIN GODZILLA (2016), and now Toho Company’s animated trilogy, kicked off with this stunning entry, GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET (2017). MONSTER PLANET is a Godzilla … Read More
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2
Baba Yaga Reloaded. Keanu Reeves once again finds himself the linchpin of a career-defining movie series. He’s the laconic, eponymous anti-hero in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO, a movie whose story is built around its innovative combat scenes. In this sequel to 2014’s JOHN WICK, Wick must fulfill an obligation to a colleague, or risk never being able to leave his … Read More
THE RITUAL 2017
Swedish meat and balls. Four British friends on a hiking trip through Sweden encounter an elemental evil that crucifies people and eats their innards. This ain’t your daddy’s Swedish Chef. The hook in THE RITUAL is its crescendo of fear. With a chilling soundtrack that is disturbing all by itself, when added to the morbid events that bedevil the four … Read More
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
You maniacs! You blew it up!… WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES concludes the modern APES trilogy started in 2011 with RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. An epic film doing its best to capture the immensity of a protracted battle between two species for the stewardship of a planet, it succeeds on many intellectual and technical levels, … Read More
SHARKNADO 5: GLOBAL SWARMING
Shit-nado. SHARKNADO rained sharks on Los Angeles; SHARKNADO 2 rained sharks on New York; SHARKNADO 3 swamped the White House reign; SHARKNADO 4 made it rain in Las Vegas… and SHARKNADO 5 shits all over the world. Literally and figuratively. SHARKNADO 5 finds shark-slayer Fin (Ian Ziering) and his cyborg wife April (Tara Reid), chasing down a sharknado that has … Read More
DARKEST HOUR
Fight For Your Right – to Dunkirk! He mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle. — Edward R. Murrow. (Accredited to Lord Halifax in DARKEST HOUR.) Oldman does Churchill! The greatest actor of our generation plays the greatest orator of the greatest generation. DARKEST HOUR follows newly-elected British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) through Britain’s darkest hour … Read More
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Interspecies Love and the Balls it Requires. Like the aqua spawn of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and Abe Sapien from HELLBOY, our collective consciousness accepts the “Gill Man” as a species; a familiar alien entity in our science fiction. Yet in Guillermo del Toro’s unique THE SHAPE OF WATER, the Gill Man has transcended the species demarcation and … Read More
STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII – THE LAST JEDI
This is not going to go the way you think! Writer-director Rian Johnson grabs the STAR WARS universe by the midi-chlorians and shakes until you scream Uncle Owen! If ROGUE ONE was a love letter to the Original Trilogy, then THE LAST JEDI is the Dear John letter to J.J. Abrams. Johnson takes such liberties with the concepts and themes … Read More
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Signage Pwnage. After a murder investigation goes cold, the mother of the murdered girl purchases advertising on THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI to turn up the heat on the local sheriff, by reminding the town of his neglect: RAPED WHILE DYING AND STILL NO ARRESTS? HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY? It’s not a murder mystery, it’s not a cop drama, it’s … Read More
JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND
Of Comedy and Molecules. Introspective prophet Jim Carrey sits down with his beard and reminisces about the takeover of his body by Andy Kaufman while filming MAN ON THE MOON. A calmer Jim Carrey than we’ve ever seen before, sits down with director Chris Smith in JIM & ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND, to discuss the filming of his 1999 biopic … Read More
GERALD’S GAME
Freedom is just a handcuff away. Vacation. Tote bag. Two pairs of chrome steel handcuffs. Long-married couple Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) and Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) are trying to revive their marriage with a new game. After Jessie is handcuffed to the bedposts, she loses her taste for the game and says No. Uncuff me. Gerald coyly says no. Then he … Read More
DUNKIRK 2017
Song for the Unsung. A high-pitched drone of violins imperceptibly morphs into the far-off air-scream of a diving German fighter plane. From the expanse of grey sky, a jot of shrill steel, growing into an engine roar, swelling into machine gun slaughter over a beach where 400,000 Allied soldiers huddle, stranded by circumstance, packed like lemmings, waiting for deliverance on … Read More
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
This ain’t your daddy’s underoos… SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING follows the retconned Peter Parker in his quest to become Tony Stark’s bottom bitch. It’s one of the best superhero movies of the modern era, capturing the tone, humor and desires of its hero perfectly. But is nobody going to protest the blatant retroactive continuity on Spider-Man’s suit? I guess not, because experiencing … Read More
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