(June 20, 2024)
HIT MAN. In my inscrutable-to-some fervor to defend Bad Boys: Ride or Die and the deliciously trashy legacy of that franchise, I failed to reserve enough column-inches and enthusiasm for...
(June 13, 2024)
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. I was prepared to blame prevailing global conditions as much as my own skepticism for sleeping on Bad Boys for Life (2020) as long...
(June 6, 2024)
BABES. Despite the inescapable fact that pregnancy, birth and its alternatives have touched literally all of us, the subject has been largely shunted to the margins of contemporary cinema. As...
(May 30, 2024)
FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA. A friend — and greater cineaste than I — having very recently watched and enjoyed Furiosa, conveyed to me his abiding concerns for the future...
(May 23, 2024)
Attentive readers will note the conspicuous omission of this weekend's new releases from this column; fair enough and an explanation may be in order. First and most importantly, Sam Taylor-Johnson's...
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Idea of You
(May 16, 2024)
KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. It's been a while since the most recent installment in this, the ongoing pre-history of the Apes saga. That movie, War for...
(May 9, 2024)
THE FALL GUY. At the risk of speaking more reboots into existence, the storeroom of old media is not always the refuge of the unimaginative. For it to work, some...
(May 2, 2024)
CHALLENGERS. Although never a proper tennis fan, I would, in my younger, dumber years, have considered myself something of a casual appreciator. As country kids, old tennis rackets were useful...
(April 25, 2024)
THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. When they're really cooking, Guy Ritchie movies can deliver a thrilling, funny, well-appointed (if slightly vapid) pastiche of Brit-crime in a heightened, mid-century American vein....
(April 18, 2024)
CIVIL WAR. I would never call myself a science fiction head, as much for fear of reprisals from within the community as for the sake of accuracy. When the genre...
(April 11, 2024)
THE FIRST OMEN. With the recent spate of horror movies centered around nuns — from the Conjuring universe's spinoff and 2023 sequel, Immaculate's robes only lately sweeping out of...
(April 4, 2024)
GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE. For a giant lizard, Godzilla has evolved. At this point, his multiverse timelines are overlapping, with reboots from Japan and the U.S. passing each...
(March 28, 2024)
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL. After a brief, pleasantly surprising period of infatuation with modern, low-budget horror, my enthusiasm precipitously — maybe inevitably — declined. But as it has been,...
(March 21, 2024)
LOVE LIES BLEEDING. One might not have suspected there was room to develop new sub-genres within film noir, much less imagined that hyper-stylized, ultra-violent, Southwestern lesbian romance bodybuilding revenge noir...
(March 14, 2024)
So as not to be accused of bad faith arguments, a disclosure: I did not watch the 2024 Academy Awards presentation ceremony. In fact, I don't think I have watched...
