2018

[8] Writer/director Alex Garland (The Beach, Sunshine) casts Natalie Portman as a biologist who joins a team of other female scientists into a mysterious, growing dome called ‘the shimmer’. Inside they quickly learn that the phenomenon is altering the DNA of flora and fauna — including themselves. They head to the source of the mystery, a lighthouse where a meteor crashed years ago. Will they …

[7] Tom Hardy stars as an investigative reporter who becomes the unwilling host body for a gloppy alien creature — named Venom — that gives him superhuman powers. At first the possession experience is scary, with Venom being very much in charge. But eventually Hardy and his counterpart negotiate a relationship as they seek to stop an rich, evil scientist from bringing more dangerous aliens …

[7] Two teenaged boys, friends since early childhood, experience a rift after a night of drunken sexual experimentation. One boy questions his sexuality while the other leans into homophobic name-calling and behavior to distance himself from his former friend. Meeting the dilemma honestly helps one boy to move forward, while fear holds the other one back. Giant Little Ones features some incredible performances from young …

[7] New York teenager Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is bitten by a radioactive spider and begins developing powers just like Spider-Man. He meets the real Spider-Man (Chris Pine) during an encounter with a villain named Kingpin (Liev Schreiber), who is using a giant machine to mess with the space-time continuum. Spider-Man gives Miles an order to destroy the machine just before he’s killed by Kingpin. …

[6] Melissa McCarthy shifts gears with a dramatic turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the true story of celebrity biographer Lee Israel, who after decades of success writing best-selling books about the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Estee Lauder, and Tallulah Bankhead, found herself in a desperate dry spell in the early ’90s. She turned to forgery to make ends meet, selling fake private letters …

[7] Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer) brings his off-kilter humor to this dark period-piece comedy about a poor but clever scullery maid (Emma Stone) who ingratiates herself to England’s ailing Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) with intentions of replacing the Queen’s longtime confidante and political proxy (Rachel Weisz). You can think of it as a quirky retelling of All About Eve. The …

[8] Christian Bale once again transforms himself completely to become former vice-president Dick Cheney in Adam McKay’s (The Big Short) new film, Vice. The film is a pastiche of Cheney’s political career, driven in large part by his relationship with wife Lynne (Amy Adams) and daughters Liz and Mary. McKay is careful to keep Vice a pitch-black comedy at all times, but he also does …

[7] Clint Eastwood directs and stars in The Mule, the story of a 90-year-old man who becomes a drug runner for a dangerous Mexican cartel. The money keeps Eastwood’s character motivated. Meanwhile, his ex-wife and daughter express disappointment with his continuing absence in their lives and the feds start closing in on his illegal activity.  Eastwood is playing a character more naive and corny than …

[8] Joel Edgerton (The Gift) brings Garrard Conley’s true story of dangerous, misguided gay conversion therapy to the big screen with the help of Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) plays Conley in the film, a young teen who is pressured to confess his homosexuality to his baptist preacher father (Crowe) and loving mother (Kidman). With …

[6] Another passable Marvel movie. Let’s see. What was this one about. Shit. I saw about a week ago… I remember Paul Rudd and the new girl (Evangeline Lilly) spend most of the movie trying to get back Michael Douglas’ super cool high-tech laboratory. And it’s hard, because it can shrink just like Paul Rudd can, and be carried around like a toy. How it …

1 2 3 4