The removal of Zack Snyder in the DCEU seems to have a sparked a wide array of MCU-inspired movies. You know, films filled with meta-humor that don’t take themselves as seriously as, say, “Man of Steel” and “Batman vs Superman.” If Snyder wanted to, so badly, bring the dark layers that Christopher Nolan’s sublime, game-changing Dark Knight trilogy then he was dead-wrong in that decision. The drastically lighter tone shown in post-Snyder movies “Wonder Woman,” and “Aquaman” has none-too-surprisingly led to the hiring of James Gunn for “The Suicide Squad.” It is, after all, because of Gunn that the MCU has had this tonal shift in humor, his 2014 sci-fi romp “Guardians of the Galaxy” changed the game for the MCU and how they were going to handle their ensuing films (just look at “Thor Ragnarok,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” “Doctor Strange,” “Captain Marvel.”)
Read moreClair Denis' ‘High Life' is Puzzling, Surreal and Beautiful [Review]
‘Claire Denis’ "High Life" had an underwhelming world premiere at the Roy Thomson Hall during the Toronto Film Festival, for which I attended. Around half the audience had already left the theater by the time the film ended, you could just tell nobody was into it. And this is coming from a fest that prides itself in having the best audience in the world. Even Toronto audiences couldn't deal with the metaphorical artsy ambitions that were unfurling on the screen. And I don't mean that as a detraction of Denis' mad ambitions in "High Life," which, by all accounts, warranted a repeat viewing on my part.
Read moreKent Jones' ‘Diane' is a Morose and Slight Depiction of a Middle-Aged Woman [Review]
“Diane,” the fiction directing debut of critic/film historian Kent Jones, the longtime film critic and current director of the New York Film Festival, is driven by an excellent performance from Mary Kay Place. However, this is a fairly perceptive but incredibly slight drama looking for an identity throughout its morose and uninvolving 96 minutes.
Read moreTim Burton's ‘Dumbo' is Too Cutesy and Forgettable [Review]
Tim Burton and Screenwriter Ehren Kruger, who penned the catastrophic “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” have decided to turn “Dumbo,” an animated classic which ran for just 64-minutes, into a two-hour movie.
Read more‘Wounds' Is the Lamest Kind of Horror Psychodrama [Review]
Babak Anvari’s “Wounds” is a movie that tries to toss so many things at its audience, both shockingly surreal and bewilderingly flat, that it ends up crash-landing very early into its running time. Anvari gave us the excellent Iranian-horror allegory “Under the Shadow,” back in 2016 but this sophomore effort, having him shoot in America and in English for the first time, is a mess.
Read more‘A Vigilante’ Abuse Survivor Olivia Wilde Seeks Bloody Retribution [Review]
Revenge fantasy in cinema will never go out of style, but in a more sensitive age, vigilante films without a thoughtful touch can meet their own swift and merciless end. Take Eli Roth‘s neo-conservative wet dream remake of “Death Wish,” recently savaged by audiences and critics for its soulless, unthinking vengeance. The masculine, gung-ho individualism of this genre, aggressively promoting Second Amendment rights to enact revenge, might have worked a few years prior, but today, feels tone deaf, dated and poorly-timed.
Read more‘The Mustang' Review: Familiar Story Somehow Works Due to Lead Performance and Direction
Rage-filled inmate meets rage-filled mustang — cue in the metaphors.
Read more‘Us' Review: Jordan Peele's Sophomore Effort Lacks Depth But Makes Up For It With Thrills [Review]
Writer-director-producer Jordan Peele carries the weight of expectation with his sophomore “Us.” After all, his debut, 2017’s “Get Out was an incredibly well-perceived genre mashup that dealt with the race division in America.
Read moreS. Craig Zahler's ‘Dragged Across Concrete' Is Avant-Garde Right-Wing Cinema [Review]
Bless writer-director S.Craig Zahler’s pulp heart for not conforming to what it supposed to be deemed acceptable in movies today. His first two movies “Bone Tomahwak” and “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” were non-conformist depictions of violence raised to the level of art. Casting conservative actors like Vince Vaughn, Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell in his films has irked people to no end; Zahler has been called every name in the book: A misogyniost, bigot, racist, sexist and, really, any terrible term deemed “alt-right” on Twitter. Sounds familiar? Quentin Tarantino had the same issues back in 1994 when his “Pulp Fiction” pushed the boundaries of distastefulness in cinema to create a landmark movie event. Zahler isn’t in the same league yet as QT, but his rebellious brand of avant-garde, right wing cinema is making a mark, whether people want to admit it or not.
Read more‘Ash is Purest White’ Is Jia Zhang-ke’s Beautiful Feminist Take On The Gangster Film [Review]
At first glance, Jia Zhang-ke‘s “Ash is Purest White” feels like an immaculately perfect patchwork film, taking cues from his 2013 masterwork “A Touch of Sin” and his flawed, but brilliant, 2015 epic “Mountains May Depart,” as well as the docu-drama Chinese glimpse of “Still Life.” It’s odd, considering that Zhang-ke is not known for repetition — in fact, the only repetitiveness we keep seeing is the use of his wife and muse Zhao Tao in his movies. The director is famous for continuously trying to re-examine and reinvent the language of cinema with every movie.
Read more“True Detective” Season 3 Was An Improvement Over Last Season, But Continued to Show Its Creator's Flaws As An Artist
The exposition in “True Detective” Season 3 almost broke the season apart for me. When you have an actor like Mahersala Ali, who can give off emotional resonance with just a facial stare, and you give him incredibly expanded dialogue, well, that’s creator Nic Pizzolatto’s ego for you.
Read moreJulianne Moore gives one of her best performances in “Gloria Bell" [Review]
Sebastian Lelio‘s "Gloria Bell" is a remake of the director's 2013 film "Gloria," except this time he moves the story from his native Chile to the U.S.
Read more“Triple Frontier" is A-Grade Action With More Brains Than Brawns [Review]
Former elite soldiers go on an Expendables-like heist thriller in J.C. Chandor’s (“All Is Lost,” “A Most Violent Year”) indelibly exciting and pulse-pounding “Triple Frontier.”
Read more“Captain Marvel” Struggles to Overcome Its Formulaic Trappings [Review]
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Captain Marvel” is very much designed for the Marvel “nerd.” A full-on cosmic orgy dabbled with nostalgia-driven details of the 1990s. This is a time-shifting space story teeming with deception at every turn, and, yet, when it reaches its finale one feels, quite frankly, un-involved by it, hell, even bored.
Read morePeter Jackson's Landmark “They Shall Not Grow Old" [Review]
Peter Jackson’s "They Shall Not Grow Old" uses never-before-seen archival footage of the "great war," which then colorizes and restores them in 3D format. This is an incredibly fascinating project which was originally screened in the U.K. last fall but has only come out this past month in the States. The result is nothing short of a landmark cinematic event.
Read more“Isn't it Romantic?" is the Very Thing it Mocks [Review]
Here’s a movie that mocks the very thing that it is. What starts off as a satirical bit on romcoms, shooting darts at the leading ladies of the genre from the ‘90s, ultimately turns into that very kind of movie. That’s “Isn’t It Romantic” a film which casts Rebel Wilson as its lead, but fails to capture the wooly spirit of the talented 39-year-old Aussie comedian.
Read more‘The Hole In The Ground’ Digs A Moody, But Conventional Horror Ditch [Review]
Not to carp on about it, but the new wave of indie arthouse horror, but has really tapped into something primal in our culture. Using formal rigor and a kind of patience that’s the opposite of jump scares, this new movement is bound by its collective desire to use atmospherics to unsettle us emotionally and psychological on a much deeper level. It’s a different kind of fear and one not traditionally scary in the boo! gotcha! sense, but in general, it’s so much more long-lasting and at its, best profoundly disturbing.
Read moreChristian Petzold’s ‘Transit' is Driven By Kafkaesque Ambiguity [Review]
Christian Petzold’s “Transit” is the completion of what the director has called his “Love in the Time of Oppressive Systems Trilogy” with “Barbara” and “Phoenix.”
Read more‘The Wedding Guest’: Dev Patel Stars In Michael Winterbottom’s Patchy Drama [Review]
Director Michael Winterbottom (“24 Hour Party People,” “A Mighty Heart“) has had a career filled with ups and downs. His knack for jumping into different genres and has always been commendable, but it makes for a rather patchy filmography. Nevertheless, the 56-year-old filmmaker never cashes it in, always pushing himself with something new and, at times, interesting. Even when he fails, he does so admirably. Sadly, his latest endeavor, “The Wedding Guest,” is a lesser effort despite its intentions.
Read moreGaspar Noe's “Climax": Vibrant Dance Movie and Horrific Bad-Trip [Review]
Gaspar Noe‘s Climax is split into two movies, both running about 45 minutes, both relying on risky, over-the-top camerawork and both heavily relying on an EDM soundtrack.
Read more