Scream (2022)
[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…
The Power of the Dog (2021)
[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…
Eternals (2021)
[5] Spoilers ahead. A group of immortal beings called Eternals were sent to Earth centuries ago to fight a bunch of monsters called Deviants so the human race could survive and thrive. After all the monsters were vanquished, the Eternals…
Mank (2020)
[7] Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) makes a socio-political hero out of Herman J. Mankiewicz in this biopic that chronicles the boozy screenwriter's tribulations writing Citizen Kane. Gary Oldman plays 'Mank,' who we first meet laid up in bed…
X (2022)
[5] If you threw every horror movie since 1960 into a blender, there's a chance it would come out looking like this offering from writer/director Ti West (Sacrament, House of the Devil). A group of young people rent a cabin…
Licorice Pizza (2021)
[8] Hollywood often waters down characters and storylines to make them universally appealing. Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson with Licorice Pizza, or David O. Russell with Joy and The Fighter, are challenging that notion with stories of tremendous specificity --…
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
[7] Tom Holland, my personal favorite Spider-Man, returns in his third official film -- although his character has also appeared in many other Marvel movies that don't have his name in the title. This time, the young webslinger is dealing…
Don’t Look Up (2021)
[7] In this satiric dark comedy from director Adam McKay (Vice, The Big Short), Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as astronomers trying to warn the planet of an extinction-level comet headed straight for Earth. Meryl Streep plays a Trump-like…
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
[6] McKenna Grace stars as twelve-year-old Phoebe, the granddaughter of a recently-deceased hermit she discovers has a connection to the original film's Ghostbusters, who have long since disbanded. When her mother inherits the grandfather's decrepit farmhouse, Phoebe learns he wasn't…
Antlers (2021)
[5] Keri Russell stars as a rural Oregon middle-school teacher who grows concerned for a troubled child (Jeremy T. Thomas) who exhibits signs of domestic abuse. But the boy's reality is far worse than she suspects. With the help of…