It's the meta-narrative around this film that gives it power; without knowing the story behind the story, this would be a fairly inert revisionist western. But if you know the context (which I won't repeat here because other reviews cover it exhaustively), The Misfits becomes this heartbreaking portrait of people caught in the tides of a changing country and the stirrings of a New Hollywood. A sense of doom pervades this entire production, as palpable as the Nevada air is…
Masterfully blends advocacy with artistry. There's a lot of gorgeous nature shots of British Columbia through this documentary: tree-covered mountains, rushing lakes, sweeping fields. But these vibrant images become uneasy as we learn more about what lies rotting beneath this beautiful land. Sugarcane is an investigation of a residential school in Canada, and the horrific abuses against First Nations children by the Catholic priests who were ostensibly their guardians.
As investigators begin to assemble evidence and interview survivors and witnesses,…
The late 1990s nostalgia crested a couple years ago — it's all about the early-mid aughts now — but Y2K, at first, feels less like a movie made in 1999 than 2009. I was in high school then, and would have loved these types of stoner comedy/horror hybrids. Despite the New Year's Eve setting (where no one seems to be particularly cold even though it's WINTER in NEW JERSEY), this feels more like a late summer release.
Had a lot…
If Die Hard is a Christmas movie (it's not), then this should definitely count as well. The more you sit with the logic behind the screenplay, the more it falls part. Script suffers from too many punch-ups; a lot of contrived plot points to create an action scene. But while I was in the moment? I was so fucking engaged, my heart was pounding. To everyone complaining about the plot holes: don't think too hard about it! Have some fun!…
Why was the best musical number the deleted scene that plays during the credits?
Horrific pacing, horrific CG backdrops, even more horrific wigs. Pasek and Paul's musical terrorism continues, and plot is overstuffed where it loses cleverness. But the funny bits are very funny, and the choreography is great. Something tells me there won't be a Spirited Broadway adaptation.
Fuck it, this was super fun. Good Hollywood screenwriting on a micro-level. Commodus could have been a paper-thin cartoon villain, but making insecurity the root cause of his evil, and casting his sister to be taller than him, makes his character work better than it ought to be. And Joaquin Phoenix is terrific. Russell Crowe, absolute movie star.
Action scenes are really well done, and the music video editing endemic to early 2000s flicks suits the material well. Most of…
Brilliant movie through and through. This time around I found myself very moved by the characters who aren't played by Cary Grant or Rosalind Russell. Poor old Bruce, the patsy who just wants a comfortable life and a lovely wife. The doomed Earl and Mollie, whose life or death plights are laughed off by sneering journos. Even though they're just breathers from the quick-talkin' antics, Howard Hawks doesn't treat these scenes as gags. It gives emotional weight to the wackiness.
An ill-conceived project from the jump, but on its own , Ali Abbasi successfully delivers a solid biopic that only appears sympathetic to Donald Trump. As young Donald learns the dark arts of the deal from Roy Cohn, I thought a lot about Benjamin Wallace-Wells' new profile of J.D. Vance. Both of these works — a piece about Trump's new apprentice and a movie about the time the man himself was under such tutelage — expose their subjects to be…
Had a few friends over for lasagna with Sunday Sauce, negronis, and this movie :)
A bottle of Sicilian wine would have completed it, but it's Sunday night and no one wanted to drink too much.
Great movie about movies, that's not reallllly about movies. Rather, it's an elegy to a communal way of life that's been lost, even if that was a life with ion and desire cut out of it. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. You can't go home again.
Can't believe that Sam Mendes tried to make his own version with the awful Empire of Light.
Appreciate how airless and unfun it looked to be in this biker gang. If anything, it captured the reality of these rebels without a cause who are eventually supplanted by a younger, angrier generation. (As Dave Weigel notes, you can sum up the film with this: "Men who want to feel tough form a bike club, and they are replaced by younger men who actually ARE tough.") But I don't think Jeff Nichols quite threads the needle here. The character…
As programmer Maddie Whittle points out, Twister is a gender-swapped His Girl Friday with the action beats of Speed. The re-marriage comedy stuff is so good that the disaster scenes, although thrilling, feel like a distraction. But it's a good time all the way through. The 90s soundtrack is camp. Bill Paxton is perfect. Helen Hunt is hot. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is fun. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
I moved a couple weeks ago and this is my first time watching a movie on my new TV! 65 inch OLED 🥹