All Film Reviews

Toy Story 4 (G)

About midway through, Toy Story 4 tosses out a 2001 joke, which is only mildly surprising — what is Pixar known for, after all, if not their magically synchronous grasp on both rich maturity and wonder-instilling innocence? Their artistry has always extended past the typical fifty-fifty split between fart jokes to keep the kids drooling […]
Booksmart (R)

Every decade has that one teen comedy that just speaks to a particular generation, accurately capturing the zeitgeist in a way that not only makes it irresistible in the moment, but imbues the film with a sense of almost historical importance. These include such hits as Animal House, Sixteen Candles, American Pie, Mean Girls, and Superbad, amongst others. But the 2010s really hadn’t found […]
Tolkien (PG-13)

The best film about J.R.R. Tolkien is still The Fellowship of the Ring. I use the word “about” because Fellowship gets at the purest elements of his legendarium and his soul. The Elves are still mysterious and dangerous, the world feels big and ancient, and the Shire gets a lot of screentime. I truly believe […]
Mid90s (R)

Mid90s begins with a push, or rather, two. The film opens on production company A24’s logo, which has been fashioned by skateboards. A kid subsequently runs across the screen, shattering the logo. In the very next shot, the camera peers down a hallway for a few quiet moments until the silence is shattered by another […]
Dark Phoenix (PG-13)

It’s difficult to imagine nowadays, but there was a time when superhero films had to make an effort to sell themselves to an audience. Studios genuinely didn’t know if people would be willing to buy into all the fantastical and often strange inner workings of comic book storytelling. After 1997’s disastrously bad Batman & Robin sank like an anchor […]
Under the Silver Lake (R)

“Used to be, a hundred years ago, you know, any moron could kinda wander into the woods and look behind a rock or s–t and discover some cool new thing, you know? Not anymore. Where’s the mystery that makes everything worthwhile? We crave mystery ‘cause there’s none left.” These musings come from Under the Silver […]
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (PG-13)

In interviews, director/cowriter Michael Dougherty has called his Godzilla: King of the Monsters “the Aliens to [the 2014 Godzilla]’s Alien.” The comparison is an apt one. Alien, directed by Ridley Scott in 1979, was a moody, slow-burning horror film, prizing dread and atmosphere over character or plot. Its 1986 sequel, James Cameron’s Aliens, shifted gears […]
Godzilla (2014) (PG-13)

When was the last time you saw a big-budget movie that was remarkable for its craftsmanship? The blockbusters that swarm cinemas every summer often invoke the name of Steven Spielberg, but precious few modern summer movies approximate the skill and patience of his original, 1975’s Jaws, the one that (together with Star Wars in 1977) […]
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (R)

John Wick was slick, streamlined, and light on its feet. Clocking in at ninety minutes, it was short and sweet. It knew what it was about (violence of the ultra-cool variety), and how it was about it (headshots — lots and lots of headshots), and did it pretty well. The problem, of course, is that […]
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (R)

Moviegoers of 2019 have become familiar with the phrase “Part of the journey is the end” through that really popular superhero movie you may have seen. Something similar to that now-famous truism presents itself through the latest Ted Bundy film. In the case of the Bundy film, the lesson learned is that the end often justifies the […]
Avengers: Endgame (PG-13)

One of the many, many things the Marvel Cinematic Universe has severely lacked is a sense of poetry — visually, verbally, thematically, or otherwise. But what strikes me about Avengers: Endgame is that it is a small but significant step toward reversing that trend. The film contains a surprising number of poetic touches and grace […]
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (PG)

In my review for 2019’s criminally underrated The Kid Who Would Be King (still not a fan of that title), I lamented the dearth of classic family adventures like the ones Joe Johnston was so good at directing during the 1990s. What I’d neglected to remember was that we’d actually gotten a fairly good and fairly […]
The Mustang (R)

If The Mustang were a song, it would have been written and recorded by Johnny Cash. The fundamental elements are all there: Love, God, and Murder. It is the story of a convict who is placed in a very unique rehabilitation program: a rehabilitation program that uses horses. The old man who runs the program […]
The Curse of La Llorona (R)

Syncretism has come to the Conjuring universe. Quite obviously, The Curse of La Llorona is a story rooted in Mexican folklore, dating back to the 19th century, about a mother who does the unspeakable, killing her own children in a fit of jealous rage. Considered as a piece within the Conjuring universe, however, the film functions much […]
High Life (R)

Space wasn’t always scary. At first, it was simply the stars and little else. As time went on, humanity began to learn more about the solar system, but I doubt many thought to be afraid of it. In the early 20th century – perhaps even sooner than that – writers began to speculate about the cosmos in a less strictly academic manner. Science-fiction was born. By and large, these writings were optimistic and more than a little naïve.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (PG-13)

I have a strange history with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. When the first film came out in the summer of 2014, I was completely taken in by it and willfully ignored the friends who told me it was bad – until I watched it one time too many and veritable scales fell from my […]
Iron Man Three (PG-13)

As the fishes above attest, this is not going to be a grand apology for an overlooked masterpiece. I am merely offering a few modest words on a film’s modest merits. In the rush of Marvel movies released since its premiere in 2013, Shane Black’s Iron Man Three has largely been forgotten – a victim […]
The Conjuring 2 (R)

The message that emerges from The Conjuring 2 is simply this: home is where the father is. More pointedly, home is where the faithful father is. The Hodgsons are a family with no father, and their lives are objectively and demonstrably the worse for it. Their biological father’s abandonment left the family exposed – exposed to grinding poverty, the stresses that accompany it, and bullies of all sorts. Ed reverses this trend, restoring function, hope, and faith to the home. Conversely, when Ed is eventually driven from the home through deception, the Hodgson family crumbles – emotionally and in terms of their safety.
Hellboy (2019) (R)

Life’s all about checks and balances. Just last week I was excited that we’d finally gotten a superhero film, Shazam!, that was interested in being something different and had real thematic weight. And then the clunky, absolutely unnecessary reboot of Dark Comics’ Hellboy came along this weekend and reminded me that happiness is sometimes so fleeting. To put it mildly, […]
Dumbo (PG)

In a sense, viewing this iteration of Dumbo seated next to my mother was to come full circle: I watched the original film every single day for a month when I was a toddler – or so she tells me. Of course the Nietzschean themes of eternal recurrence and childlike wonder are so archetypal that the original film, a masterpiece written in the key of kitsch, uses them without so much as a wink or a nod to belie its philosophical quandary or artistic intent. This latest film had high standards to live up to.