Take Bugs Bunny, give him katanas, bloodlust, Ryan Reynolds’ abs and ADHD snark and you have Deadpool, the titular antihero of the year’s first superhero movie, which makes use of the character’s fourth-wall breaking and humor to gleefully take apart superhero film tropes, most hilariously encapsulated by an opening credits…
I find films succeed or fail on three factors: 1) story and characters 2) filmmaking 3) acting. The Revenant has two and three down, but it’s the film’s failure with one that makes me think the film will be forgotten soon after (or perhaps before?) Oscar night in February. Director…
The Hateful Eight, appropriately the eighth film from auteur Quentin Tarantino, dovetails his first film, fellow bad-guys-in-a-room thriller Reservoir Dogs with the Western genre with an added dash of Agatha Christie. Together, they combine for a surprisingly-sincere film with a powerful plea for racial tolerance. Like any auteur of Tarantino’s pedigree,…
How do you review Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Nobody will read this review to judge whether it’s worth a look. Let’s be honest, if you’re reading this, you’re either a Star Wars fan or my mother. So by what metric do we measure this film, carrying the legacy of…
Creed, like its title character, is a boxer who’s focus is overwhelmingly on legacy – and rightfully so when picking up the torch of the venerable Rocky series. The film bobs and weaves, expertly hitting every emotional right hook and body jab at precisely the right moment. Watching Creed is…
The Night Before hits all the right notes of a classic holiday film combined with the profane humor and bromance we’ve come to expect and love about writer/star Seth Rogen. Self-aware and mature about its immaturity, the film is comfort food of the finest order, pizza by way of Michael…
Spectre, the 24th film featuring British superspy James Bond and the fourth featuring Daniel Craig in the role, is about as close to a greatest hits album as a film can get. However, also like greatest hits albums, it’s repetitive, insubstantial and masturbatory. Instead of celebrating or playing with the…
The great of thing about the rarefied genre of “cannibal Western” is that it’s sells itself right up front. Do I even need to provide you with more than the picture of Kurt Russell’s whiskers and the phrase “cannibal Western” to get your interest in Bone Tomahawk? The title is…
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension has the unenviable task of being a franchise finale, responsible for satisfactorily wrapping up the six(6!) film series about haunted houses and the idiots who film them. It’s doesn’t really do anything particularly well in light of the previous films’ repeatedly running into the ground…
As indomitably towering in its director, star and writers, Bridges of Spies is stubbornly old-fashioned both in concept and in execution. Co-written by the Coen brothers, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks all add up, in theory and in practice (mostly) to be a winning combination. It’s simple…