Mission: Impossible — Fallout Might've Ruined All Other Action Movies
Spoilers abound.
Hereditary Will Completely Fuck Up Even The Most Seasoned Horror-Movie Watcher
My favorite genre of fiction, in books and stories and movies and probably even television shows, is horror. I love horror. I watch horror movies all the time. I stay up late after my wife goes to bed so that I can watch more horror movies, even though it means that I sleep terribly. My worry with Hereditary was that…
White Men Can't Jump Is A Lot Of Fun Masking What Appears To Be A Pretty Debilitating Gambling Addiction
If there’s a moral to be gleaned from White Men Can’t Jump, it’s that that if someone carrying many hundreds of dollars in cash—without a wallet in sight—challenges you to an expensive bet, it’s probably because they know something you don’t. I realize people relied on paper money more back in the ’90s, but no one…
The Sandlot Is Full Of Little Shitheads And Terrible Baseball Advice
Over the weekend, The Sandlot turned 25 years old. Major League Baseball is celebrating the anniversary of its release throughout the season with theme nights at nearly all of the stadiums. (The Brewers went above and beyond with their homage.) Despite growing up a devoted baseball fan—with aspirations beyond my…
The Mighty Ducks Is A Mediocre Movie With An Utterly Unsympathetic Protagonist
I’m not nostalgic for your favorite sports film, because I probably never saw it the first time around (unless it’s A League Of Their Own, which even I know is a goddamn masterpiece). There’s no grand explanation for this gap in my cinematic literacy; I was too young for some of the classic sports movies, too old for…
Annihilation Will Creep You All The Way Out
If you saw the trailer for Annihilation and got hyped to watch Natalie Portman spend the movie kicking ass with a machine gun, mowing down monsters while dispensing action-movie cliches, you won’t get what you want. If you read Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, on which the movie is based, and expected a faithful adaptation…
Hope And Glory Turned The Blitz Into A Party
This review of Hope and Glory was originally published in the New Yorker (October 5, 1987) and appears here with permission.
A List Of Some Of The Times The Last Jedi Told The Older Star Wars Movies To Eat Shit
Needless to say, major spoiler action follows.
Here Is A Short Review Of The Last Jedi
The Force Awakens was fun on its own merits, and thrilling in a nostalgic sort of way, and the fresh Star Wars youths were charming and compelling where they were supposed to be (Rey and Finn), and darkly charismatic where they were supposed to be (Kylo Ren), and absurdly good-looking and sexy where they were supposed…
The Black Stallion Takes Film Back To Its Elemental Beginnings
Originally published in the April, 1980 issue of Chicago Magazine, featured in the new anthology, Movies That Mattered, it appears here with permission.
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer Is As Scary As Anything You'll Ever See
The scariest movie in theaters this Halloween season isn’t the one where a college kid relives the night she was brutally murdered over and over, nor is it the one in which a homicidal maniac with a god complex designs elaborate games in order to torture and kill his victims, nor is it the movie about a clown who eats…
What Is Mother! About?
Here’s a question: Should you go see Mother!, the new, polarizing, bearshit-insane film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem that everyone is talking about though apparently no one saw and the few who did see it had no idea what in God’s name was going on? Well,…
Suicide Squad Is The Summer's Best Movie About Divorce
I consider my life to consist of two parts: one before I saw Suicide Squad, the other after.
The First Three Rocky Movies Were Nothing But White Wish Fulfillment
This piece originally appeared in the August, 1982 issue of Film Comment. It is reprinted here with permission.
Disney's Bears: Bears Watching
There is a lot to like about Bears, the latest cinematic offering from Disneynature. There is much to dislike as well, but you'll be fine if you approach the viewing experience from the proper point of view. That point of view being that bears are great, and watching them do bear stuff is also great.
Michael Bay's Ode To Meatheads: Pain & Gain, Reviewed.
There are many movies that could have been made from the raw materials of Pain & Gain, which is based on a series of outrageous Miami New Times articles about three dimwit Florida bodybuilders who in 1994 kidnapped a rich local businessman and stripped him of all his assets. Some filmmakers, for example, might have…
Danny Boyle Mesmerizes Himself. Trance, Reviewed.
For director Danny Boyle, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. With each genre of movie he makes, you get the sense that he wants to be sure it's the most demonstrative of its kind ever. Trainspotting was the druggiest movie ever. 28 Days Later was the zombie-iest movie ever. Slumdog Millionaire was the most…
An Epic That Stumbles. The Place Beyond The Pines, Reviewed.
Director Derek Cianfrance's last film, Blue Valentine, was a crushing study of a couple (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) falling apart. It was beautifully made and well acted—I loved it—but the rawness of the emotions and the ambition of the structure (cycling between the present and the past, as we see…
Room 237 Will Make You Love The Shining All Over Again
One of the saddest things about the death of a favorite filmmaker is realizing that you'll probably never see any new movie from him ever again. When popular musicians die, they always leave material lying around that their estates can spruce up and put out for the fans. (Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, and he's still …
