weekend watchlist: a timely cure for collective cultural amnesia
Plus drone warfare, murder most genteel, and more. (First published May 7th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Clive Owen
Gemini Man movie review: the last hurrah of the movie star
No movie has ever been higher-concept than this: Today-aged Will Smith versus CGI-young Will Smith! It’s the future of film in an anemic, tedious, ironically dated spy-action shell. Bafflingly awful.
Anon movie review: brings a whole new meaning to ‘private eye’
This sci-fi riff on the end of privacy is not as provocative as it would like to be, and its mystery completely falls apart in the end. But its visual worldbuilding is fascinating.
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For movie review: meaner streets
An unnecessary sequel that’s empty and arduous, little more than vignettes on vengeance and cruel parades of sociopathic power.
you can watch the first episode of Cinemax’s new series The Knick on YouTube (if you’re in the US)
Or if, ahem, you have a U.S. IP address. First one’s free, kid…
Blood Ties review: same old New York groove
Excellent performances by Clive Owen and Billy Crudup can’t disguise the fact that there’s absolutely nothing here we haven’t seen too many times before.
Blood Ties trailer: should I be depressed, or optimistic?
Great cast, but maybe it’s the same-old sameness that’s keep this from getting a major release? Could that be a reason to hope?
Shadow Dancer (review)
Even the marvelous performances by Clive Owen and Andrea Riseborough are not enough to ratchet up the drama to the level of the totally gripping, which is a damn shame and something of a puzzler…
Intruders (review)
Alas that Intruders doesn’t seem to understand that movie monsters need something more primally urgent about them than it has bothered to attach to its Hollowface.
Intruders (trailer)
Great. Another haunted house flick. Oh, but Clive Owen is gettin’ terrorized? Awrighty, then. I’ll be there.
