
weekend watchlist: is it good to be the queen?
Plus a teenage con artist, a skewering of late-night comedy, and more… (First published September 18th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Plus a teenage con artist, a skewering of late-night comedy, and more… (First published September 18th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Plus badass women and damned dirty apes… (First published April 30th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Knee-jerk clichés abound in a shameless retread of The Matrix in which many levels of storytelling ineptitude are the only depth on offer. Can Hollywood please stop reincarnating the same old movies?
A spectacularly scattershot, pandering mess of pulp junk, cheap-looking animation, and poisonous gender dynamics. A charmless cash-grab that can’t be bothered with the slightest stab at originality.
Welcome to the first action movie of the Trump era, wherein civil liberties are a distant fantasy and “no man left behind” has been forgotten, yet this is all “a higher form of patriotism.”
The most interesting thing about this all-over-the-place drama-thriller is Ridley Scott’s last-minute Hail Mary pass to replace a disgraced cast member. The finale is tense and exciting, but it’s a slog to get there.
Goes well beyond the typical mindless array of slapstick and humiliation to reach disgusting new depths of coarseness. Not just appalling, but actually dangerous.
A triumph of science fiction storytelling: a sweeping tale of mythological scope told with astonishing FX wizardry that brings emotion and intelligence to nonhuman people.
Unfocused like a 1970s cast-of-thousands disaster flick, and with little point beyond engaging in bland and easy propagandistic cheering. Boston deserves better.
“Experience it in IMAX”!