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(01/03/19 7:00am)
Two years ago, I was in the minority when I declared “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” to be less than the sum of its parts. Eddie Redmayne was genuinely fantastic as the unassuming, socially awkward protagonist Newt Scamander, and he continues to shine in the sequel, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.” Moreover, when the first film embraces the whimsical tone inherent to Scamander’s story, it works. Just as often, though, it gets buried in what I described in an old The Dartmouth review as “dour subplots,” most of them revolving around the terrorist reign of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, played by Johnny Depp. As the title of the sequel might suggest, the film goes full dark, ditching any possible whimsy as fast as possible. It also ditches compelling character motivation, flowing plot structure and just about everything else that once made the “Harry Potter” stories and their subsequent adaptations and spin-offs so beloved.
(08/17/18 6:05am)
In last week’s review for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” I described “Star Wars” as the behemoth that towered over the “cinematic psyche” of my childhood. I wasn’t exaggerating. Even now, few films elicit a Pavlovian nostalgic reaction as effectively as a “Star Wars” film does.
(08/10/18 6:05am)
Fedora. Bull whip. Leather jacket. Snarky smile. “Trust me.”
(08/03/18 6:05am)
The pitch meeting for “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (artistic liberties taken):
(07/27/18 6:10am)
As I prepared to write this review, it occurred to me that “Ant-Man and the Wasp” is the fourth Marvel Cinematic Universe film I’ve reviewed since the beginning of the year. To phrase it another way, the MCU is 10 years old and already has produced twice that number of films and a myriad of shows on Netflix, ABC, Hulu and Freeform. Add on top of that the travesty that is the DC Extended Universe, as well as films like “Incredibles 2” that don’t fall into either franchise, and it’s fair to say that the superhero genre has reached a saturation point. However, there seems to be a misconception among the uber-fanboys of the genre that any mention of this saturation point is to cast a pejorative light on all recent superhero fare. To be clear, the problem is the overall quantity, not the quality of the individual films. In fact, most of these films, on their own terms, are decent, and the same goes for the MCU’s most recent release, “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”
(07/13/18 6:05am)
“Ocean’s 8” stars Sandra Bullock as Debbie Ocean, sister of George Clooney’s roguish con man Danny Ocean from Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” trilogy. Criminality, as it turns out, runs in this family. Once released from prison, Debbie reconnects with her old partner, Cate Blanchett’s wonderfully cynical Lou Miller, and together they scheme to steal a necklace worth $150 million from the Met Gala. To this end, they assemble a cohort of six accomplices played by the likes of Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter.
(06/29/18 6:30am)
“Jurassic World” is a lousy film barely kept afloat by a marginally entertaining screenplay. Its sequel, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” is a wonderfully creative film occasionally hampered by a subpar screenplay. The fact that the screenplay for the second film is superior to that of its predecessor says quite a lot about the monumental difference in quality between the two.
(06/22/18 6:40am)
As any fan who grew up with the 2004 Pixar animated classic will be happy to tell you, “The Incredibles” was always primed for a sequel. For 14 long years, children of the early 2000s wondered why “Cars,” “Finding Nemo” and “Monsters, Inc.” were all granted sequels and prequels, but a follow-up film for our favorite superhero family seemed to permanently languish in development hell. Regardless about how you feel about each of those films and their subsequent franchises, they are all self-contained stories. Sequels may not have detracted from the originals, but they also never truly enhanced them. The ending of “The Incredibles,” on the other hand, begged for closure. But director Brad Bird deliberated, instead choosing to direct “Ratatouille,” “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” and “Tomorrowland.”
(05/29/18 6:15am)
I’ve said it before (see my reviews of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) and I’ll say it again here: I love Star Wars. But my personal relationship with Star Wars is far less interesting to me than its broader cultural impact. And the popularity of Star Wars is practically incalculable. It may just be a collection of silly stories set in an insane fictional universe, but clearly those stories resonate.
(05/22/18 6:15am)
A little over a year ago, I used a review for the then newly-released “Logan” as the jumping off point for a larger discussion about the proliferation of R-rated superhero films that began with the first “Deadpool” film. While neither “Logan” nor “Deadpool” was the first superhero movie to garner the R rating, they did embody a potentially game-changing triple threat: both were entries in a popular franchise produced by a major studio, both were critically acclaimed and they both cracked the list of the top 10 highest grossing R-rated films of all time.
(05/15/18 6:10am)
Ever since filmmaker and critic François Truffaut published his 1954 essay “A Certain Tendency of French Cinema,” auteur theory has played a prominent role in both film theory and film criticism. Put simply, Truffaut and his contemporaries contended that directors were the true authors of their films. I remain wary of auteur theory because of its pernicious tendency to devalue the accomplishments of the many artists who collaborate with a director during the making of a film. Yet Wes Anderson seems to exist for the sole sake of being an exception.
(05/08/18 6:15am)
As “Avengers: Infinity War” continues to dominate cinemas, it’s worth taking a moment to look back at the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Just as the story of “Infinity War” positions itself as a culmination of the 18 films that have come before, its commercial success, as the fastest film to reach $1 billion at the global box office, reflects how the franchise has morphed into a cultural juggernaut in a mere ten years.
(05/01/18 6:20am)
What is “Avengers: Infinity War,” exactly? Technically, it is both the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as the third film in the Avengers film series. More 19th, it is the first film in a two-part, back-to-back epic conclusion to the Avengers series, which means it is inherently setting up the audience for “Avengers Four.” Most of all, though, “Infinity War” is meant to make good on the 10-year-old promise that we would one day get to see all the heroes in the MCU battle its greatest villain, Thanos, an iron-willed titan with visions of deathly grandeur. Thanos is in pursuit of six Infinity Stones, which when combined with his magical Infinity Gauntlet will give him the power to eradicate half of all life in the universe (Thanos reasons that resources are limited, so his solution for overpopulation is indiscriminate genocide). Now it’s up to the combined forces of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop him.
(04/24/18 6:25am)
The year is 2020 and sightless creatures roam the Earth, using their impeccable sense of hearing to feed on remaining human survivors. This is the premise of the new horror film “A Quiet Place,” and it’s a magnificent example of the sort of story pitch that manages to be provocative and exciting in a single sentence. As Hollywood studios attempt to monopolize comic book adaptations, sequels and shared cinematic universes, this species of engaging, original pitch has become increasingly rare.
(04/17/18 6:20am)
The Baudelaire Orphans are back for a second season in Netflix’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” and fortunately for us the show hasn’t lost its gothic charm, idiosyncratic humor or heartfelt sincerity. Once again, producer and director Barry Sonnenfeld and his team of writers adapt the books from the beloved book series by Lemony Snicket (nom de plume for Daniel Handler) into two-part episodes. In doing so, they allow each book the chance to shine, breathe and grow in what is essentially a 90-plus minute mini-movie. This season tackles books five through nine: “The Austere Academy,” “The Ersatz Elevator,” “The Vile Village,” “The Hostile Hospital” and “The Carnivorous Carnival.” As the titles suggest, the show remains as erudite and obsessed with literary allusions as before.
(04/13/18 5:40am)
"Black Panther"
(04/10/18 6:30am)
For better or worse, “Ready Player One” is the natural culmination of the narrative trends Hollywood and moviegoers have favored over the last five years — namely, an intense revival of interest in media from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Don’t believe me? Well, enjoy that new “Star Wars” movie, the new “Jurassic Park” movie and the new “Predator” movie all coming out later this year. So it should come as no surprise that someone had the bright idea to adapt Ernest Cline’s popular novel “Ready Player One,” a smorgasbord of nostalgia, to the big screen. The fact that it has been brought to life by Steven Spielberg, the man behind so many of the stories that Cline appears to love, is just the cherry on the sundae.
(04/03/18 5:45am)
There is a scene in the middle of Duncan Jones’ newest film “Mute” that is so ugly, so needlessly perverse and repugnant, that I couldn’t help but wonder if it was some sort of endurance test for the audience. I wouldn’t have been shocked if the film’s end credits had been replaced by a video-game-like graphic reading, “Congratulations! You managed to watch this dumpster fire without puking! You win a prize!”
(03/27/18 5:30am)
According to Rotten Tomatoes, 2018’s “Tomb Raider” is the best reviewed video game film adaptation … ever. Given that it has a modest 50 percent critical approval rating, I’d argue that says more about the infamously abysmal quality of such adaptations than it does about anything else. Video game films are notorious for their ability to trip and fall over the exceedingly low bar set by so many generic Hollywood blockbusters.
(03/06/18 5:10am)
Dear Paul Thomas Anderson,