In Theaters
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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 […]
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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. […]
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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.
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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
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Black Panther (PG-13)
Recently – within the last three months, let’s say – the latest entry in a blockbuster franchise with at least ten theatrical releases to its name (and a million more well on the way) was released. This new film received near-universal critical praise, with many viewers ecstatically describing it as a departure from previous installments […]
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (PG-13)
Recently, FilmFisher editor Joshua Gibbs wrote a piece defending film critics against a common accusation: “This film was just plain fun. Why don’t you snobby film critics get it?” I stand by Gibbs’ argument in that piece, and would like to make an addendum: it is difficult to make a film that is truly fun. […]
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Dunkirk: The Better Part of Valour (PG-13)
There is an unspoken understanding among filmmakers that war is hell and that war films must convince their audiences of it. And it isn’t a controversial notion. The guy who exits the theater nodding sagely and remarks, “Man, war is hell,” can’t expect much pushback from his buddies. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk contributes to the genre […]
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Wonder Woman (PG-13)
In the Pensées, Pascal writes, “I blame equally those who decide to praise man [and] those who blame him… I can only approve those who search in anguish.” Pascal’s anguish stems from man’s contradictory nature: caught inescapably between the extremes of wretchedness and greatness, he is neither wretched enough to be a beast nor great […]
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (PG-13)
Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story feels nothing like any other Star Wars film. At first, that’s jarring, even off-putting. Once you settle into its particular rhythm, it’s exhilarating. There is no opening crawl of yellow text setting up the story. There are no Kurosawa-esque wipes to transition between scenes. The story isn’t […]
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Jackie (R)
The aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown twice in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie. The first time the camera glides along behind the motorcade before swooping stylishly overhead to offer a brief, obscured glimpse at the President’s dead body slumped over in his wife’s lap. Then it is over. The presentation is slick, […]
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Doctor Strange (PG-13)
Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange is the latest installment in the rapidly expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, a collection of interconnected superhero movies that, to many viewers, are starting to feel like indistinguishable products. Doctor Strange sidesteps and invites that complaint in interesting ways. The broad strokes of the story here are par for the course, with […]
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Captain America: Civil War (PG-13)
This is the zenith of Marvel’s storytelling method. Over the past eight years – a time period winkingly referred to in the film – the studio has built an intricately interconnected “cinematic universe” through thirteen feature films. This model has drawbacks and benefits, both of which I discuss at length in my essay on The […]
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Spotlight: For the Sins of the World (R)
In The Brothers Karamazov, Elder Zosima addresses the monks at his abbey a few days before his death. He urges them to love one another and then reminds them that, though they have dedicated their lives to God, they are no more righteous than those who live outside the monastery walls. He says, “When [the […]
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Karma sans Justice: The Big Short (R)
Nerds are the last to finish first, but, if The Big Short is to be believed, that might be just about the best time to get ahead. Nerds have a sense of this. They might fall behind the jocks on the sporting fields and have all of the humiliating wedgies in high school; they might […]
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Hail, Caesar!: Hollywood Meets the Inferno (PG-13)
The religious who live outside the film industry tend to think of Hollywood as a bastion of secular materialism. In their view, directors and starlets throw lavish parties and cruise down Rodeo Drive in search of the next designer purse. Certainly Hollywood has its share of hedonism. However, it is also a deeply spiritual place. […]
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Hail, Caesar! A Tale of The Christ (PG-13)
Early in Hail, Caesar!, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, protagonist Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) speaks to a room full of religious figures: a Protestant preacher, a Catholic priest, an Orthodox clergyman, and a Jewish rabbi. Mannix, a fixer for the fictional Capitol Pictures studio, explains that their biggest release of the year […]
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The Hateful Eight (R)
2015 was a banner year for westerns. The genre, once one of Hollywood’s most profitable and now one of its least – the financial disaster of 2013’s unjustly reviled extravaganza The Lone Ranger was the final nail in that coffin – seemed doomed to fade into obscurity. However, rather than living on solely through the occasional indie […]
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Macbeth: Post-traumatic Stress and the Pre-Christian World (R)
Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare if we did not have reasons to argue about him. Part of what makes his plays so enduring is their ability to tolerate the conjunctions “both … and …” However, it does make writing about him always a challenge, even though thousands (millions, if you include students) have done so before. […]