Spidey begins anew with Day One of the unavoidable consequences springing from the success of the MCU has been its narrative growth. What with its stable of thousands of characters, producer Kevin Feige has been more than willing to bend the knee toward fans to provide as many big-screen representations of their favorites as possible. […]
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Leviticus both terrifying and heartbreaking, Jessie stars in Toy Story 5
Heartbreaking Leviticus terrifying yet poignant Though discredited, conversion therapy relating to homosexuality is still being used today, albeit with much less frequency. Some of these practices are folded into other approaches, have been renamed and also presented as a free speech issue through a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in early 2026. While steps are […]
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Masters of the Universe is fun, Backrooms leads nowhere
Fun is front and center in this Universe Realizing their mistake in passing up the opportunity to license toys for a little movie named Star Wars, the suits at Mattel charged their head designer, Roger Sweet, with coming up with something to rival George Lucas’ universe. Released in 1982, the result was Masters of the […]
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Pressure is gripping from start to finish, Miss lacks emotional honesty
Unwavering determination at the core of Pressure It’s hard to grasp the scope and planning that went into the D-Day invasion that occurred on June 6, 1944. Preparations began in mid-1943 that would result in the deployment of over 156,000 Allied Forces soldiers over a 50-mile stretch of beach across two time zones. Seven million […]
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Body lasts too long, Mummy far more than a monster movie
Body becomes a bit ripe On Monday, April 20, an op-ed appeared in the New York Times with the headline “Movies are Bullying Us with Their Bloat,” by Frank Bruni. In it, the author harps on a complaint I’ve had with American movies for quite some time: their needless length. He points out the average […]
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Wrecking Crew needs innovation, The Morrigan a worthwhile shocker
Bautista, Mamoa nearly salvage Wrecking Crew With the coming of sound to the film industry in 1927, the movie musical was born. Studios were so eager to promote the new technology through song and dance, there was a glut of musicals that nearly killed the genre before it could gain a head of steam. In […]
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Mercy falls short, Rip cleverly done
Intriguing Mercy ultimately falters Smacking of Steven Spielberg’s overlooked masterpiece Minority Report, Timur Bekmambetov’s Mercy also features a law enforcement officer trapped in a legal system he helped create, trying desperately to prove his innocence. At the heart of the Tom Cruise feature were questions of free will and predetermination. Here, the script from writer […]
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Train Dreams is touching and powerful, Wicked: For Good stumbles
Bentley’s Dreams examines a quiet life bravely lived In adapting Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams, director Clint Bentley has pulled off a small miracle. This quiet, touching film runs counter to so many accepted notions of what makes up a movie. The plot, such as it is, is rather bare, the incidents that propel it […]
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Frankenstein a masterpiece, Nuremberg serves as cautionary tale
Del Toro cobbles together ambitious, magnificent Frankenstein Referred to as “my Everest,” director Guillermo del Toro has longed to put his distinctive stamp on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Stating recently that each movie he’s made has been in preparation for this undertaking, he was able to secure a $120 million budget and a generous six-month shooting […]
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Fairy tale Me Before You surprisingly effective
Sam Claflin as Will Traynor and Emilia Clarke as Lou Clark in Me Before You. PHOTO COURTESY Warner Bros. Many times in life, we often let our hearts overrule our minds. Such is the case with Thea Sharrock’s Me Before You, a slick piece of treacle that manages to charm as it flirts with insulting […]
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Plodding pace nearly derails War
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America From the very start, the Marvel movies have had a certain swagger. That’s not to say that Jon Favreau’s Iron Man had an arrogant air about it, but rather a sense of confidence in its storytelling abilities that was prevalent in all of the company’s subsequent entries. This was […]
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Doris more than it appears
Sally Field as Doris in Hello, My Name is Doris. The most surprising thing about Michael Showalter’s Hello, My Name is Doris is how thematically dense it proves to be. The comedy about one woman’s misguided attraction towards a much younger man also touches upon issues of abandonment, loneliness, loss of identity and, ultimately, self-awareness. […]
