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
THE DIRT 2019
THE DIRT – is a load of CRAP! Maybe a quarter of it happened, and not like this… — Logan, LOGAN. THE DIRT opens with a title card: “This story is true.” Fuck off. In this paean to rock band Mötley Crüe (remember when umlauts made everything evil?), every detail, every anecdote, every song and character and drug-fueled escapade is … 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
DESTROY ALL MONSTERS
Destroy All Credibility! DESTROY ALL MONSTERS was planned as the last Godzilla film from Toho Company, which is why, we presume, legendary GOJIRA director Ishiro Honda, Just Doesn’t Give A Fuck anymore. After aliens called Kilaaks gain control of the monsters on Monster Island (translated as “Monster Land” in the English dub), forcing them to destroy Earth cities, Japanese scientists … 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
DON’T THINK TWICE
Double-thinking the clever-clever. …your 20s were all about hope, and your 30s is all about how dumb it was to hope… — Chris Gethard, DON’T THINK TWICE DON’T LOOK BACK is the story of six fast friends chasing the dream together in a New York improv comedy troupe called The Commune, giving their all to make it. And then – … Read More
DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH
The Face of Retirement. Charles Bronson once acted alongside Clint Eastwood in 1965, in an episode of Clint’s TV series RAWHIDE. Two young men at the dawn of their toughguy careers. Bronson has been chasing Eastwood ever since. Certainly not consciously, and I’m sure they’d be the last to cop to the unspoken rivalry, but it was there all right … Read More
DOCTOR STRANGE 2016
Doctoral Architectural Procedural. If you like architectural special effects, DOCTOR STRANGE is the movie for YOU. Having purchased the building-bending app from INCEPTION, director Scott Derrickson plugs it in and goes on a two-hour coffee break while skyscrapers fold on top of one another, streets turn into Rubik’s cubes, and right angles become three-dimensional Escher-esque imbroglios. Then he emails the … Read More
DAVE CHAPPELLE: DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS
Dave: Swoll.0 Bigger and badder than THE AGE OF SPIN, Dave Chappelle’s second stand-up show in this two-fer Netflix presentation, DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS, finds him more at ease and hitting more knockouts and home runs than in Part 1. (Or is this Part 1? I guess director Stan Latham felt that TEXAS had the more powerful vibe, … Read More
DAVE CHAPPELLE: THE AGE OF SPIN
The Original Angster. Comedy icon Dave Chappelle returns to the standup arena after a decade, to prove he’s everything that the legends say he is. Is he? Like any icon who disappears from the scene (for any reason, up to and including death), Dave’s legend has outpaced his reality. So AGE OF SPIN seems like it starts slow – but … Read More
DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD
Art Imitating Life Imitating Irony. David Brent (Ricky Gervais), 15 years after leaving THE OFFICE, takes his self-financed band out on the road, for one last stab at “making it.” But, as one character laments, “he doesn’t really know what ‘it’ is.” DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD is a loving elegy for a much-loved character. But writer-director Gervais has … Read More
DEADPOOL
Grabbing Them By The Pussy. DEADPOOL is an electrodes-to-the-testicles, projectile-vomiting king slut of a film. And like every good slut, it’s got a filthy mouth, it’s bedecked in dungeon leather, and it takes it up the ass with a strap-on dildo. It is such a satisfying superhero movie because it has done what all mainstream superhero movies should have done … Read More
DESPICABLE ME 2
Ain’t Quite Despicable. And that’s not good. Is it?… Ex-supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), now a family man with three adopted daughters and a host of minions to provide for, is called into service by the Anti-Villain League to help track down a new supervillain. The original 2010 animated feature DESPICABLE ME hit the world like a cute and … Read More
DUMB AND DUMBER TO
Unfunny and unfunnier too. First of all, in this illiterate social media environment, I wonder how many people know this is the wrong form of the word “TO.”10%? Yeh, that’s about right. DUMB AND DUMBER TO catches up with our slightly retarded pals from DUMB AND DUMBER, Lloyd (Jim Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels), 20 years later, as they embark … Read More
DARKMAN
Liam Neeson’s first encounter with the dark side… of acting! Back before Sam Raimi knew how to direct, and before Liam Neeson knew how to act, there was a patchy, deformed quilt of sophomoric acting and gloved-thumb editing called DARKMAN. Supposedly a “superhero” movie, now a cult film, DARKMAN has dated badly since its 1990 release (a release date that … Read More
DADDY’S HOME 2015
Alpha versus Alfalfa. Milquetoast step-dad versus alpha-male real dad. In a battle to the PG-13 reconciliation. What did you expect? If ever there was a movie begging to be R-rated, and missing many comic opportunities for its vanilla rating, DADDY’S HOME is it. Will Ferrell is Brad, the step-dad trying to connect with two step-kids. He unconditionally loves being their … Read More
DINOSAUR 13
Queen of the Tyrant Lizards. A Tyrannosaur named Sue. A government doing the same thing. When paleontologist Peter Larson unearthed the most complete tyrannosaur skeleton in history in the South Dakota badlands in 1990, little did he know he was also uncovering the worst part of human nature. After the team of Peter, his brother Neal, Terry Wentz and Sue … Read More
DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM
We’ll Always Have Banlieue. Paris is burning. And only Parkour can save it. DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM is the high octane sequel to the atomic blast of DISTRICT 13 (2004). Like its predecessor, a guilty pleasure, full of the same running and jumping and skipping and flower arranging. At the conclusion of DISTRICT 13, undercover cop Damien (Cyril Raffaelli) united with … Read More
DISTRICT 13
Run, jump, drive, shoot. Foot to the face. Popcorn. Jackie Chan and THE TRANSPORTER had an ADHD baby that spoke French. And it was called DISTRICT 13. An ex-crim and an undercover cop team up to go deep into the bowels of a toxic, walled-off district to retrieve a neutron bomb from the local crime lord, who is aiming it … Read More
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
This is the Dawning of the Age of A-Hairy-Ass… How embarrassing! Conquered by people who don’t wear pants. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES starts exactly where RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) left off, with a killer virus spreading via a world map, extinguishing the human species except for a few pockets of immunes. 8 years … Read More