All Film Reviews

Incredibles 2 (PG)

In the last 40 years, American theaters have received around 70 superhero movies with lead characters recognized and known by audiences who’ve never even picked up a comic book. Their rate of release has gone from 4 openings a decade in the 1980s to 5 or more a year since 2016. The question for many […]
Bambi (G)

Bambi needs no explanation, no grand thesis or deep thematic explication. It can be understood immediately, not only at the cognitive and emotional levels, but at the most basic: from within the unconscious. It is a story about growing up and coming of age that can be understood by anyone immediately. It is a basic […]
Hereditary (R)

Horror films are fickle things. The genre has been undeservedly judged as a lower art form, which has led to some perception that the only function horror can have is to produce cheap shocks and minor thrills. Every so often, however, a film comes along and completely challenges that notion. At their best, horror films expose […]
Upgrade (R)

When did we collectively decide that summer moviegoing should be franchise fare only? Aside from the odd comedy or rare sleeper hit, there’s been this horrible recurrent trend that the summer movie session is ripe for every manner of sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, and intellectual property to dominate the box office. The problem is, these films are becoming increasingly unsatisfying and they never quite feel like the kinds of big crowd pleasers that will stand the test of time.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (PG-13)

By all accounts, Solo: A Star Wars Story is the post-Lucas Star Wars movie that should feel most like a corporate product. In a bizarre paradox, it may actually be the one that feels most human. The other post-Lucas films have been intriguing but haphazard; that Solo possesses a simple sort of dramatic competency should […]
A Nightmare on Elm Street (R)

Imagine, if you will, a perfect American suburb. You know the kind, probably only immortalized on the silver screen or through photography. All the houses are colonial style, possibly Victorian, with white picket fences and freshly mowed grass. The neighborhood’s safe enough for the kids to play without adult supervision, and everyone is familiar with who lives on their block. But scratch that seemingly perfect veneer, and there’s decay under the surface.
Tully (R)

At first glance, Tully looks like another film that makes parenting – specifically motherhood – seem mundane and miserable. There are plenty of moments in the film where kids are kicking the backs of car seats and babies are crying, but Tully says there is another truth about motherhood that gives the mundane a meaning. […]
Star Wars: The Last Jedi – An Explication (PG-13)

Although I have waited till now to publish any written thoughts on the film, it is fairly common knowledge in various circles of the internet that I do not much care for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The number of fishes above might also indicate this, though I have found it difficult to settle on a rating for the film, because my thoughts and feelings on it are mixed – conflicted, one might say.
Downsizing (R)

At the beginning of Downsizing, we meet Paul Safranek (Matt Damon). He dropped out of med school to take care of his mother in his cluttered childhood home. They talk about the recent breakthrough of miniaturizing people, which can shrink a person down to five inches tall. Apparently, this process will save the world from […]
Avengers: Infinity War (PG-13)

Avengers: Infinity War is as middle-of-the-road between better and lesser MCU films as I am middle-of-the-road between the two camps of reviewers. The MCU’s greatest weaknesses are on full display here, and while Infinity War doesn’t always play to the MCU’s greatest strengths, it does keep my hope alive that those strengths do exist. Infinity War is not a game-changer. It could have been, should have been, and almost was, but it’s more of the same—only it’s more of the same to the power of more of the same.
Annihilation (R)

Like Alex Garland’s first film, Ex Machina, Annihilation is a tense, well-paced story set in an oppressive environment and haunted by an uncanny terror. The score is dissonant and unsettling, the rules that govern the world are mysterious yet coherent, and its horror scenes are truly chilling. Lena (Natalie Portman) is a former soldier turned […]
Isle of Dogs (PG-13)

I have just checked. At the moment, there are only two movies streaming in the “Children & Family” section of Netflix which I would allow my daughters, ages 6 and 8, to watch. I love children, and happily admit myself to be one of those naïve romantics who does not really believe them capable of […]
Brother Bear (G)

I’ll begin with the bold claim that Brother Bear is one of the finest animated films Disney has produced in the past quarter century. At least, it is one of their most underrated and unappreciated. Granted, I tend to favor a handful of Disney’s supposed flops over a number of their “canonical” hits. I tend to root for underdogs, and perhaps I’m too loyal to films that left a deep impression on me in my childhood.
Ready Player One (PG-13)

Ready Player One depicts a future world inhabited by people who would rather live out their days in a virtual reality world — and the sad truth is that it doesn’t feel too inauthentic of a possible real-life future. For as much as a film like this wishes to sing the virtues of our society’s […]
The Passenger (PG-13)

“I used to be someone else, but I traded him in.” In Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, Walker Percy posits that although modern man understands the world around him better than ever, his failure to understand himself renders him desperate to escape himself. Percy cites modern fiction’s common use of amnesia as a plot device as […]
Werckmeister Harmonies (Not Rated)

“Space travel makes you realize just how small we really are. When you see Earth as a tiny blue speck in the infinite reaches of space, you have to wonder about the mysteries of creation. Surely we’re all part of some great design, no more or less important than anything else in the universe. Surely […]
X-Men: First Class (PG-13)

G.K. Chesterton’s essay “Vengeance” suggests that although modern law is highly refined, it can evolve into a system devoid of any passion and become a machine which unreflectively punishes people. “The evil in our modern law is not one of barbaric passions, but one of passionless routine. The trouble is not that a lawyer really […]
A Wrinkle in Time (PG)

I have not read Madeleine L’engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, which is a shame as I imagine it is a much better work than Ava DuVerney’s film by the same name. Of course, “See Spot Run” would also be a better work than Disney’s latest live-action effort which manages to be so devoid of merit, personality, and plot that it will be hard to write much about it
The Shape of Water (R)

Note To Readers: This review contains a frank investigation of a perverse film, and necessarily must describe some its perverse content and ideas. Given the film’s import and influence, the editor commends this review to readers who are old enough to have seen it. Younger readers who have not seen the film will not likely benefit from […]
Phantom Thread (R)

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the very best American filmmakers working today, and quite possibly the most interesting. His mastery of the craft is nearly unparalleled, placing him on that elusive, immortal plane where the likes of the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg currently reside. Yet what sets him apart, even among such esteemed company, is how perplexingly eclectic he is.