[5] Thor: Love and Thunder is another Marvel movie. It is better than a few other Marvel movies, but not as good as most. It was never torturous to watch, but if a storm knocked the movie theater’s power out, I would not have been sad to leave at any point. Thor: Love and Thunder is another Marvel movie. It tries to be cute and …
[6] Benedict Cumberbatch makes his first official sequel as Marvel’s Doctor Strange, although he’s appeared in many other Marvel movies since the first film was released in 2016. The core concept of this movie has dramatic potential, casting one of the good guys, Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff, as the new villain. Wanda’s character arc is one of the more compelling ones in the Marvel universe. …
[5] Director François Ozon (8 Women, Swimming Pool) adapts a French young adult novel (Aiden Chambers’ Dance on My Grave) about a sixteen-year-old boy who falls in love with a slightly older boy who rescues him when his sailboat capsizes off the shores of Normandy in summer, 1985. Summer of 85 begins by warning us that the older boy will be dead by tale’s end, …
[1] Roland Emmerich must be stopped. Since 1996’s Independence Day, the director has been obsessed with apocalyptic disaster movies like Godzilla, 10,000 BC, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012 — each one exponentially dumber than the preceding. When I heard he was directing a movie about the moon falling to Earth, I though, ‘Well, of course he is.’ I knew to expect mass destruction and …
[6] A 13-year old boy is kidnapped and locked away in the basement of a serial killer. As the killer tries to engage the boy in mind games, the boy starts receiving otherworldly phone calls from a disconnected phone on the basement wall. The callers? The killer’s past victims — with advice on how to survive the ordeal and kill the killer. I was weary …
[9] Writer/director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) serves up this intimate horror/thriller about a woman (Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley) who escapes London for the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband. Once there, however, she encounters several strange men who make her increasingly uncomfortable. First there’s the cottage owner who seems disappointed she is unmarried. More alarming is the nude man who chases her …
[7] Nicolas Cage plays himself in this meta action-comedy that finds the actor on the verge of reluctant retirement before a wealthy fan (The Mandalorian‘s Pedro Pascal) summons him to coastal Spain for a birthday party. Once there, the two begin working on a screenplay together and a goofy bromance begins. But when a CIA operative (Tiffany Haddish) tells Cage that Pascal is a kidnapper, …
[9] Before seeing The Northman, I already considered director Robert Eggers the most exciting director working today. His debut film, The Witch, is my favorite film of the 21st century thus far, and The Lighthouse is a fascinating follow-up. With The Northman, Eggers is three for three. Based on the same Scandinavian legend that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Northman offers the director a broader canvas …
[6] I like all the Scream movies, and I’m happy to say that trend continues with this fifth entry in the franchise. Not that the fuel tank isn’t getting low. While the original movie marries an inspired script with tight direction and terrific casting, the sequels have largely skated by on the merits of charismatic stars Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette. They were …
[8] Just as she did with The Piano nearly thirty years ago, director Jane Campion exposes the tragic consequences of rigid gender conformity in The Power of the Dog. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as a deeply closeted gay cattle rancher in 1925 Montana. When his brother (Jesse Plemons) brings his new bride (Kirsten Dunst) and her effeminate son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to live with them, Cumberbatch cruelly …
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