Film – Chuck Koplinski

If James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy was Star Wars for the 21st century, then its sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, is surely our new Empire Strikes Back. The writer/director seems to be adhering to the George Lucas space opera template, as this entry in the series is darker than the first and […]

While you couldn’t technically call Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire a chamber play, you might be able to get by with referring to it as a pressure chamber movie. Its concept is simple – a limited number of players in a confined space – and its execution slick, professional and all you would want from a […]

It’s a long way from street racing on the mean streets of L.A. to saving the world James Bond style, but that’s the evolution the Fast and Furious franchise has taken, one that no one could have expected when the first film in the series debuted in 2001. Modest in every way, this was a […]

Zach Braff’s Going in Style is a pleasant-enough movie. It has a breezy, light-hearted air to it and three veteran performers – all Oscar winners – who don’t break much of a sweat, but also don’t phone it in as they try to elevate the film’s pedestrian script, while its story of working class people […]

With last week’s announcement that Elon Musk and his team are working on developing implants that will be put in our brains so that we can interface wirelessly with computers, we were brought one step closer towards realizing all that the sci-fi genre promised us was possible. The line between science fiction and science fact […]

I have to wonder who at Sony Pictures gave the green light for Daniel Espinosa’s Life. While it is a well-made movie and features good work from its fine cast, the derivative nature of the story pretty much assures the viewer that few to no surprises will be had. Adding to its woes, screenwriters Rhett […]

It was one of the most frustrating film-going experiences in recent memory. Disney’s live-action remake of its classic animated feature Beauty and the Beast is a combination of touching moments and garish excess, a movie that eschews the notion that sometimes less is more. Director Bill Condon goes out of his way to dazzle and […]

When reading about the massive budgets spent on some of today’s films, I often wonder, “Where did all the money go?” That’s certainly not the case where Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island is concerned. Sporting a $190 million price tag, there’s no question that every single cent of the budget is present on the screen. […]

It comes as no real surprise that director James Mangold draws comparisons between the X-Man character Wolverine and the classic Western gunfighter Shane in his latest film, Logan. Among all of the outcasts he’s rubbed shoulders with in his long comic book history and the various mutant movies he’s appeared in, Logan has come off […]

There’s a sense of unease that sets in early on in Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and as well made as this acerbic, entertaining hybrid is, this may be its most significant accomplishment. Our protagonist, a young African-American photographer by the name of Chris Washington, is meeting his girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) parents in their posh […]

“I had a thought as I was being dragged down the stairs by that horse on meth.” The circumstances surrounding the way in which the above piece of dialogue was delivered had me laughing much harder than I have in quite some time. However, the single witty turn of an odd phrase does not a […]

I face a bit of a moral quandary where reviewing John Wick: Chapter 2 is concerned. A beautifully shot and composed film that visually puts most similar Hollywood product to shame, it features Keanu Reeves at his most glacial in the title role of a retired hit man who’s sucked back into an elaborate criminal […]