2017

[7] Matt Damon stars in writer/director Alexander Payne’s (Election, Nebraska) film about a man who undergoes a miraculous new “shrinking” process so that he can live in a miniature utopia where his money is worth more… a lot more. Unfortunately, the man’s wife (Kristen Wiig) gets cold feet and bails on the procedure after he’s already been shrunk. From thereon out, Downsizing is about finding yourself …

[7] Guillermo del Toro serves up a fantasy love story set in the 1960s in which a mute janitor at a top-secret research facility falls in love with… well, a fish man. Sally Hawkins plays the janitor and Doug Jones (a Del Toro regular) plays the fish. Hawkins is endearing and Jones is always reliable, but the supporting players outshine them here. Richard Jenkins is great …

[8] Writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) picks up the reigns and steers the franchise into bold, new waters with an entry that summons Star Wars fans to let go of the past and wipe the slate clean, so that something new can begin to grow. After the fan-pandering Episode VII, something new and unpredictable was exactly what I craved in a Star Wars movie. Johnson …

[7] Saoirse Ronan stars as the title character, an anxiety-ridden, pretentious, troubled — well, normal, I guess — teenager who does lots of teenagery things, like having sex for the first time and trying to get into college. Watching Lady Bird is like being a fly on the wall inside the character’s lower-middle-class home. The central conflict is between Lady Bird and her mother, played compellingly …

[7] James Franco directs and co-stars with his brother Dave in The Disaster Artist. the true story of two men of questionable talent who move to Hollywood and spend millions of dollars making one the worst movies ever made, The Room. Franco emerses himself in the role of Tommy Wiseau, a weird, kinda-creepy dude of indiscernable age and heritage. His accent sounds a little European, …

[8] Seven months after the rape and murder of her daughter, a grieving mother challenges her local police department to find the culprit when she advertises on three incendiary billboards. Frances McDormand (Fargo) headlines Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which is being advertised as a comedy featuring fowl-mouthed McDormand chewing the scenery and ripping characters new assholes. And to be fair, that’s definitely part of this movie. …

[7] SPOILER REVIEW: Technically, there are spoilers in this review. But if you look at the movie’s credits, you shouldn’t be surprised by them. Although we’ll probably never really know for sure, it looks to me like Joss Whedon saved Justice League from Zack Snyder. The movie has character and heart and it’s paced like a real movie, whereas Snyder’s movies lack character and heart, and, …

[5] Happy Death Day is Groundhog Day meets Scream, but not as interesting as either of those films. Jessica Rothe stars as a sorority girl who relives her birthday over and over again, each time ending in her death at the hands of a mysterious baby-masked killer. I’m not a fan of cyclical narratives or gimmicky movies, so to be honest, I was already dreading …

[7] After a mediocre beginning and a truly shitty-ass sequel, Marvel has made the wise decision of scrapping the Thor character as originally conceived and giving him a personality make-over. And that’s why it feels like Thor has been possessed by Star Lord from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. It’s a calculated move, for sure. But does it make Thor more interesting to watch? Hell, …

[7] SPOILER REVIEW: The original Blade Runner is one of the finest motion pictures ever made, so the thought of Hollywood making a sequel 35 years later made my skin crawl. But color me surprised. While it pales in comparison, the sequel is actually far better than I would ever have imagined or hoped it could be. Ryan Gosling stars as an android Blade Runner, …

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