Movies

If you loved the first season of The Terror you may want to check out The Damned, a creepy horror movie set on a remote arctic island where something terrifying lurks in the shadows and swirling fog. Death and despair linger over the sorry group of remote fishermen (and women) after they make a tragic

In Nickel Boys, we get to go first-person-action mode in a drama about two Black boys unjustly sent to a segregated reform school in the Jim Crow South, 1962. But when the most compelling selling point of the film is its cinematography, that’s a problem.  Nickel Boys is unique in that we the audience get

In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, returning director Jeff Fowler amps up the action and urgency to mixed results, proof yet again that bigger isn’t always better. My 6-year-old and the video game fanboys/girls in the audience would disagree with me.  Sonic and team are back to battle the emergence of an evil hedgehog (Keanu Reeves) who

What are the best movies of 2024? Last year was arguably the strongest movie in a decade; for the first time in a long time, creating a top ten list without leaving several worthy films on the cutting room floor was impossible.  In 2024, things came back down to Earth—yet even still, there were several

In Nosferatu, Johnny Depp’s procreation is entranced by a sexy dead dude with handlebars and pockmarks while audiences are treated to a visually mesmerizing and atmospheric experience, as one should expect from Robert Eggers.  Eggers, who directed one of my all-time favorites (The Witch), the visually stunning The Northman (which made my top ten list

I usually hate biopics about musicians and artists. There may be no type of people less interesting and unimportant to make a biopic about, unless it’s a movie about a filmmaker. Further, most of these biopics follow a similar arc: rise to fame, ego and drugs and/or disease gets the best of them, movie over.

Nicole Kidman drinks milk off the ground like the animal she is in the kinky but generally unappealing Babygirl, a movie that markets itself as sexy but is generally just not all that entertaining or alluring.  A few years ago I was introduced to the term “kink shaming” after I made a joke on Facebook

In Mufasa, Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins sells out to the Mouse House and yet does what you’d expect Barry Jenkins to do: give us a good movie.  Sure, Mufasa: A Lion King story isn’t another Jenkins classic (he directed the Best Picture-winning movie La La Land, and also the excellent If Beale Street Could Talk).

In The Seed of the Sacred Fig, a dick of a dad chooses country over family in a sobering and ultimately dark peek inside Iran’s twisted moral curtain. Shot in secret and ultimately responsible for the director’s exile, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a powerful if overly long drama-thriller mixed with real footage

In The Fire Inside, a teenage girl from a bad home aims to be an Olympian, the first female boxer from the USA to win gold in decades. Unfortunately, the movie mucks with the tried and true underdog sports formula, resulting in a product that hits with lethargic punches.  The pieces are there. The real-life

Adrien Brody makes an epic comeback in an epic four-hour drama about an architect who makes ugly-as-sin brutalist buildings in The Brutalist, a powerful if slightly overhyped piece of filmmaking that deserves to be seen on the big screen. I, of course, watched it at home, but I cranked up the surround sound and sat

In Queer, Daniel Craig plays a gay old dude named William who wanders around Mexico City seeking intimacy, and instead finds himself drawn to an empty vessel of a younger man. Then director Luca Guadagnino, having run out of book material at the two-thirds mark, takes things in a wildly different direction. Based on the

In Sing Sing, a group of convicts discovers a glimmer of hope and release where none exists. A quietly powerful film that plucks at the heartstrings of even the toughest of men (that’s me, the toughest of men… obviously), Sing Sing is one of the best movies of the year.  Domingo Coleman plays a convicted

From Steve McQueen comes Blitz, a WWII drama-lite that feels a bit too polished and Disney-like for its own good.  McQueen has made some terrific movies in his career. From Hunger to Shame to 12 Years a Slave, not to mention the Small Axe collection of movies that were released unceremoniously to Amazon Prime in

In Saturday Night, eccentric comedic talent, inexperienced producers, and outright chaos collide in a portrayal of the hectic hours leading up to the debut of Saturday Night Live, an entertaining if not particularly deep riff on the early days of Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, John Belushi and many others.  Some critics panned Saturday Night for not

In The End, a stodgy family lives underground in a decadent bunker after a post-apocalyptic event, doing what they can to pass the time. An odd musical and a a story that goes on and on without much momentum, you soon wish The End would come sooner than it does.  Starring George MacKay, Tulsa Swinton,

In September 5, the NBC sports crew assigned to cover the 1972 Munich Olympics find themselves with the story of the century: terrorists have taken hostage many members of the Israeli team. In a scramble to deliver the story to the world, they maneuver both technical and ethical challenges. Even if you know how it

In Unstoppable, a one-legged athlete who is not Oscar Pistorius does his best to prove everyone wrong—that he can compete among the very best—and overcome the miserably generic movie title bestowed upon him. What we get is an enjoyable if stereotypical sports drama that checks most of the right boxes.  One of Unstoppable’s biggest issues—aside

So… in Nightbitch, Amy Adams plays a depressed and tired woman who begins to turn into a dog to escape the trappings of motherhood and stay-at-home-momness, and if that sounds like a concept that either could be ridiculously good or outright awful… you’re not wrong. Unfortunately, Nightbitch may be the dud of the holiday and

Jude Law plays an FBI agent attempting to prove that a group of Neo-Nazis are behind a series of bank robberies in the serviceable crime-thriller The Order. Mildly entertaining but far from enthralling, director Justin Kurzel checks the right boxes while struggling to find that sense of urgency and energy that could propel it to

Proof that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (or more apt, a movie by its trailer), I’m Still Here is a subtly riveting drama filled with a swirl of joy and sorrow. It’s a must see for any serious purveyor of cinema. Primarily set in the early days of Brazil’s descent into dictatorship

There’s a small movie you probably haven’t heard of coming out in a few days. Called Moana 2, or something like. Like I said, I’m sure you haven’t heard of it. Well, some corporation from Disney invited me to the top of the Space Needle to interview one of the voice stars and a producer

An entertaining, visually appealing Disney sequel, Moana 2 delivers what families are seeking–harmless fun–while otherwise not looking to rock the boat.  What began as a Disney+ TV series has been converted into a feature-length film, and it sometimes shows. The humor is a little more slapstick, the story a bit more rough around the edges.

Kieran Culkin gives the performance of his career and Jessie Eisenberg writes and directs the acclaimed comedy-drama A Real Pain, a moving if not quite consistent examination of the lasting impact of the Holocaust, and other more modern personal traumas. Eisenberg also stars as yet another character who looks, sounds, and acts just like the

I want to be sophisticated. Hell, I’d be okay with appearing as sophisticated. And yet movies such as All We Imagine as Light come along, charged with Oscar buzz, decorated with the Cannes Grand Prize, and boasting a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating that make me question my life and all that matters in the world.

A drama that is surprisingly and thankfully not about piano lessons, The Piano Lesson keys into a family’s complicated and tragic history. Plus, there are ghosts, sort of. Sadly, the movie suffers from what so many other plays-turned-films suffer from: it still feels like a play. Adapted from a play by August Wilson, The Piano

In Wicked, secretly known as Wicked: Part One, director Jon M. Chu adapts the first act of the highly popular musical and somehow manages to make it just as long as the entire damn play. Nonetheless, powered by great acting and enchanting musical numbers, Wicked: Part One is a charming spectacle that will satisfy existing

When I first saw the trailer for Robert Zemeckis’ Here, I immediately thought it was a cinematic adaptation of the Disney theme park attraction Carousel of Progress, one of the lamest and most antiquated rides Disney has to offer. Spanning time but set within a single location—hell, a single camera angle—Here cycles through hundreds of

Maximus is dead, but never underestimate a Hollywood studio seeking to capitalize on its IP. Ridley Scott returns to direct Gladiator II, a swords-and-sandals action-adventure that echoes in eternity when men are being impaled by spears or gored by slave-rhinos but flails when it gets bogged down in political scheming and debauchery. It may not