Tag: movie theater

Film Review: “Marry Me” (2022)

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“We met at a concert.”

Cars 4 (2028)

The grand resurrection of the studio rom-com for theaters that’s also streaming on Peacock. A charming Notting Hill redux with leads just as magnetic (surprisingly so) that feels like a John Carney movie. A winning, self aware love story for that hot 50 year old in all of us.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “Jimmy Fallon shines as Jimmy Fallon, a fucking scoundrel and secondary villain accurately portraying the culpability of media in the diminishing of humanity as the cost of celebrity.”

Film Review: “Death on the Nile” (2022)

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“Ah, love. It is unsafe.”

A lavish, downright horny, and faithful whodunnit that also becomes a sort of thesis statement for the character of Poirot. Whether or not you need to dig into a legendary detective character like him is up for debate, but I think Branagh succeeds in his attempt to do so.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “I must also bemoan the obvious use of CGI for wide shots of the setting while praising the interior sets where we spend most of our time in the film. Everything is impeccably just so in each little room we inhabit with these characters, as if the interior sets were designed by the detective himself.”

Film Review: “Scream 5” (2022)

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“Well now you’re just quoting the original!”

As meta and almost as intelligent as any of the other four entries in the franchise, with the twists of the plot knife and blood to match. The “requel” concept is clever and interesting enough to warrant its existence, as are the new cast of characters who rhyme in substantial, interesting and surprising ways with the old.

Also, the most important aspect of any Scream movie isn’t meta commentary or effective scares, it’s Ghostface getting the shit kicked out of them and thrown down stairs or hit with candle sticks a bunch, which they still nail here.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “There’s a lot of Scream 3 hate popping up again, and I just want to use this space to defend it as not only a curious full shift for the franchise into horror comedy but also an early (if soft) modern commentary on predatory Hollywood, which is rich considering the Weinstein connection to the franchise, but still interesting.”

Film Review: “Licorice Pizza” (2021)

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“Of course I go to the movies.”

Licorice Pizza feels like a collection of scenes from different movies featuring the same shaggy characters that form an impeccable snapshot of a certain period in time at a certain place. It’s at its best when it moves away from the sketchy/lightly cringe teen fantasy movie scenes and focuses on the “loser” characters’ escapades and attempts to make something of themselves, even if they don’t know what that something is because they’re too young, too lazy, too apathetic, or any combination of the three.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “It is worth seeing for Bradley Cooper’s cameo scenes alone. His are pulled from a comedy of errors featuring these characters and he captures the coked up energy and manic drive of what I conjure in my mind palace when I think 70s producer.”

Film Review: “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (2021)

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“I have done the deed.”

A concise, sparse production of the play that makes use of the film medium’s varied perspectives to craft something that feels less like a stage play and more like a dream, moving ceaselessly through curtains towards its conclusion in the theater of the mind.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “Someone in the audience called it ‘Macbeth’ before it started so Denzel died at the end. Wish I could have seen how it really ends.”

Film Review: “Pig” (2021) *Favorite movie of 2021*

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“You have no value.”

This anti-John Wick in ratty clothing is my favorite movie of 2021. It’s a film noir that exudes empathy. A journey into the Portland restaurant underground to find some semblance of hope for humanity (and a pig) that actually finds some and shares it with the audience. I am a better person than I was before I saw Pig back in July. Somehow, Nic Cage and company improved me.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “I think my second favorite movie of the year is Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, which wrung similar emotions from me. I don’t know how else to connect Pig and Demon Slayer, but I’ll ponder it.”

Film Review: “Last Night in Soho” (2021)

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“It’s London. Someone has died in every room.”

Nostalgia is a razor thin veneer over the seedy historical horror show of an era in Edgar Wright’s inventive and slick foray into the genre. The good often rises to the top of the collective memories of an era like the 60s, but it’s critical to remind ourselves that it was just as wonderful and terrible in equal measure as today. Last Night in Soho removes the rose-colored glasses from its central character with a savage, dreamy haunting from a bygone time and it’s groovy.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “You can always say ‘the music was good, though’ about any era, but, well, the music was good in the 60s so the music is also good in this movie.”

Film Review: “Eternals” (2021)

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“You have a very angry family.”

A dense, beautiful film that feels like a new beginning for the MCU more so than any other entry after, well, Iron Man. It doesn’t break the MCU mold so much as it reshapes what a movie in this series can look like by pressing against the sides. What Black Panther and Shang Chi did for the modern superhero character, Eternals does for the allowed style and substance of these movies. There is absolutely room in these things for Zhao’s practical filmmaking, weighty conversations about immortality, Bollywood numbers, and slight Watchmen-adjacent interrogations of the superhero genre and the pedestals on which we place these characters.

It seems like the movie is divisive because it’s either too much of a Chloe Zhao movie and not enough of an MCU one or vice versa. For me, it’s kind of a perfect mix that takes some critical steps forward in it’s representation of humanity. Either way, change is good. Change is necessary.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “The Eternals are kind of the immortal, dysfunctional Power Rangers and I’m into it.”

Film Review: “Dune” (2021)

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“Fear is the mind-killer.”

A sumptuous adaptation of half the influential novel that captures the weirdness, introspection, and pre-Star Wars design of 1960s sci-fi (and tries to address some of the dated elements). Plus, sandworms!

My VHS cover pull-quote: “It is weird that these sci-fi guys have names like Paul and Duncan. We should just replace the first letter of their names with X. Xaul. Xuncan. Lady Xessica. There we go.”

Film Review: “Halloween Kills” (2021)

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“It’s Halloween night in Haddonfield.”

A Halloween movie that is exactly what its title suggests. Michael Myers kills and kills and kills like the mythic being this trilogy is pushing him to become. The whimsy of the 2018 movie is still there, but it’s slightly diminished by the growing brutality of The Shape’s predation and a secondary story about what a bummer mob justice usually turns out to be. It’s all set to a killer score by Mr. Johnny Carpenter himself, which is as much a draw for me as all that slasher business.

My VHS cover pull-quote: “It’s kind of the Infinity War of the Halloween franchise. Or the Kingdom Hearts III because there is a whole philosophical two-person theater piece going on throughout the movie, with two characters interrogating Michael’s nature. Light and dark. Eraqus and Xehanort.

It’s late.”