Spoiler Fever has been sweeping social media as Endgame releases across the world and audiences tune in, some of which can't stop themselves from talking about what they just saw. I had the same problem walking out of the theatre, I had to remember to keep my voice down, that I wasn't alone, that my desire to discuss what just happened wasn't more important than the enjoyment of the people around me who were just walking in. So no spoilers here, I won't give away who lives, who dies, who tells their story (excuse the Hamilton song break), but you should know that the more you read and wait the higher your chance of catching some clue as to what you don'...Read the entire review

And in this corner, released just in time to frighten us on Halloween, we have one of the worst films of 2018, a ghastly gimmick cluster bomb that will have audiences gasping for the air that has been sucked out of the room by the worst acting you will see this century; London Fields! It really ought to be heralded, this monstrosity of a movie, so that future audiences can be forewarned, or else it ought it be completely wiped from our memories, so that none of us who have seen it will have to live with the pain. Rarely, if ever, does cinema swing this hard and miss, unless it's trying to in order to make a point; no ...Read the entire review

We've rarely, if ever, seen the Holocaust from this unique perspective or portrayed in this seldom-used style; The Invisibles shares with us a story that's not exactly unknown, but nonetheless important, and presented in a way that will get our attention anew. Hollywood often brings us tales of WWII, of battles against the Nazis, of concentration camps, of holding onto humanity during a time of madness. But we seldom see the war from inside Germany, and especially not from the Jews who lived there when their very existence was illegal. This is their story, four young Berliners who refused to leave their homes to be shipped t...Read the entire review

My reaction to the Missing Link trailer in January was doubtful, and I quote: "It's hard to imagine this movie reaching the same level as other Laika films (Coraline, ParaNorman, Boxtrolls, Kubo); it just doesn't have that same feel. I'm sure the animation will be spectacular, what they do is so wonderful, I just don't see any real reason to watch other than the production company's fame. I hope I'm wrong." Update: I wasn't wrong. Missing Link doesn't bring the magic that Laika's others have almost guaranteed from the first still image, failing to live up to the hype built up by audiences' expectations when they imagine...Read the entire review

An obscure foreign film set in Tunisia and delivered in three languages, A Summer in La Goulette is a 20-year-old, under-the-radar gem that no one has seen but everyone can relate to. More than anything, it is a story of looking back and growing up, of nostalgia for a time and a place that was more fleeting than you knew when you were living in the moment, more fragile than any memory has the right to be. Although very specific in its location and time, the tale could relate to any one of us, to those who remember hormonal days spent under the sun, when the entire world seemed to be opening up right in front of you, if you c...Read the entire review

Shazam! is a surprising and surprisingly strong addition to the DCEU, a step in the right direction as far as quality is concerned, and a film that did a ton right for a little guy standing in the shadows of bigger, badder, darker superheroes. I was surprised to learn right before I watched the movie that Shazam is the name of the wizard, not the hero, and that the hero's name was once Captain Marvel, before legal battles and copyrights and blah blah blah. So there were two Captain Marvel movies released one right after the other, and in my book the competit...Read the entire review

There are a large number of us who are constantly worried about the health of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as she sits in a powerful seat among a turbulent government that can't take another hit just now. We monitor her safety, we worry about her longevity, and we pray for the future; what we wouldn't give for a handful more RBGs. No wonder Hollywood has currently turned its collective attention to this powerful woman, with a documentary and then a drama sharing this lady's life story with curious audiences and invested fans. I was worried coming in that On the Basis of Sex would be too heavy-handed, too over-dramatic, to depict this woman ...Read the entire review

The modern Disney remakes of classic Disney animation are entirely unnecessary; I hope we call all agree on that point. We grew up with these musical gems, we pass them on to our children in their original, white, cracked plastic boxes, but we never asked for them to be turned into live-action knockoffs that shadow what we used to love and can't possibly create the same magic a second time around. We also still watch, because the pull of Disney is just too great, and because our children deserve to have their own set of hallmark entertainers, even if they won't be able to reach the level of quality their predecessors were able to pull off. So he...Read the entire review

You can lecture all you want on the dangers of comparing films, even films by the same director, but the fact remains that we will; we really can't help ourselves. Jordan Peele's smash success Get Out put him on the horror map, but it also set a standard for the rest of his filmography, and that's not his or our fault, it's simple fact. That doesn't mean that none of his future movies can be good if they aren't as good as his debut, but it does mean that audience will always and naturally compare anything he does in a similar genre to the one that shockingly impressed. I don't understand how fans of Us can be angry that critics ...Read the entire review

How often do four wise and amazingly talented women come together to discuss their acting careers and to reminisce on old times? More often than we knew, apparently, but for one night only they will allow us to sit in and listen, which could not possibly be more rare. Four friends with ties that go back 50 years and an incredible amount of collective experience have invited filmmakers to their party, and the audience is the lucky plus one. Roger Mitchell may commonly direct fairly dull pictures (udson, My Cousin Rachel), but he knew how to get to the right place at the right time here, and we are just fortunate to hav...Read the entire review

The Apparition should not be confused with the 2012 film of the same name, starring Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, and Tom Felton, about a spirit brought forth by a college experiment that haunts a young couple. I'm sure that sort of apparition flick comes a dime a dozen, but this one, the 2018 French drama, is something else all together. Instead of ghosts, this movie tackles religion, which can be confusing since, what's the difference? Thinking you saw a dead person in your hallway and thinking you saw the Virgin Mary on a hill is basically the same, fictional experience, and each fantasy has its fervent supporters w...Read the entire review

The twenty-first addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is here, and for the first time we have a female lead and title character. Black Widow is one of the Avengers, Gamora is one of the Guardians, Wasp got her name in the second Ant-Man movie, but Captain Marvel is Marvel's answer to DC's Wonder Woman, an elite and powerful character who is here to make a huge impact on the entire story arc of the MCU. To get the job done, Disney chose, *checks notes*, the directors of Mississippi Grind and the actor from Read the entire review

Spotlight-style dramas are currently selling for a dime a dozen, and that's no surprise at all. Audiences have always been eager to buy exposés and true life crime stories, they speak to our less-than-empathetic natures and our baser desires to see people caught & punished. We also like to play the judge; just look at the current trends of making a murder docuseries, serial killer analysis, deep reporting podcasts. Americans like to feel like they are in the know, and they like to feel superior to; enter this genre of film. Fast paced, real life, doing wrong, getting caught; we eat it up, and Hollywood has taken notice. The...Read the entire review

I don't know what's going on with me right now, but I suddenly can't make it through an animated movie about friendship with welling up a little. Apparently I needed a reminder that it's OK to let friends go, to force your own insecurities to give up their hold on your relationships, to believe that love binds even across distances. Seems about time for a gushy quote like "If you love them, let them go", and I guess that's basically what I'm saying, but I'm going to hold myself back from complete cheeseball at least. But I will say this; that the message is one that...Read the entire review

Donald Petrie has had a very ...interesting ...career. He began as an actor, then started directing TV episodes: MacGyver, Amazing Stories, L.A. Law, The Equalizer, later Picket Fences and Chicago Hope. He segued into movies in the 90s, and that's where things get weird: Mystic Pizza, Grumpy Old Men, The Favor, Richie Rich, Miss Congeniality, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Welcome to Mooseport, Just My Luck, and most recently Little Italy, which looked to be the worst film of the last 900 years. I don't understand how he chooses his projects, maybe by throwing darts, which must be how ...Read the entire review

I sought out Wandering Earth because it looked to be a bigger deal than normal, a foreign sci-fi flick that has made its way to America and would force us to take notice. Only one theatre is my city was playing it, but rolled the dice when normally I would let a movie like this slide by, because I thought there was a chance that this experience would be different, that it might just blow me away. On that level, I guess I was disappointed, because Wandering Earth isn't Interstellar, it's more Armageddon,...Read the entire review

I adoringly follow John Cusack both cinematically and politically, but I have limits on both fronts, and it seems like we just reached the point down the film road where, if he's gonna pull over here, I'm staying in the car. He doesn't always choose the best projects, but then he drops something like Love & Mercy and you feel glad you stuck by his side all these years. On the flip side, sometimes he costars in River Runs Red for no other reason that you can discern other than money, because you know that's the only way they could get you to show your face in something...Read the entire review

The second Lego movie has a different director than the first, which is incredibly important and painfully obvious. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are complete lovable idiots, and their stuff is ultimately enjoyable, if ridiculously over the top. Their humor works perfectly in a kids movie because they are boys who never grew up, and yes that gets tiresome after a while, but in small doses that can mean a ton of fun. They wrote the screenplay for this film, but they passed the director's chair over to Mike Mitchell, the guy who brought us Deuce Bigalow, Sky High, Shrek Forever After, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, The SpongeBob Mov...Read the entire review

It's nice to be one of the few people who has seen an under-the-radar, low-budget, throw-cares-to-the-wind horror flick, because there's a sense of community that comes with watching something that precarious, that delicately connected and held together. It might be strange to think of horror as being fragile, with the monsters and the decapitations and the blood and whatnot. But that's exactly what the genre is, a delicate balance between production, money, fandom, and expression, with the resulting final product usually something that almost no one sees. I try to keep that in mind when I watch b-horror, the time and energy and work that g...Read the entire review

Sean Mathias directed one feature film, Bent, and what a way to come in/go out. We've seen countless Holocaust stories turned into movies, both unbearable truth and shocking fiction, and we'll see countless more; Hollywood knows that it's a genre that stirs us into action and that we've shown no signs of giving up on supporting. And I don't fault audiences for that; this era is definitely history we dare not forget, and I applaud directors for keeping it in focus, no matter how many times they go back to the well or how easy it may be to elicit emotion from these tales. But Mathias brings us something we think we understand from a d...Read the entire review

I have always been fascinated by the Arthurian legends, from The Once and Future King to Over Sea Under Stone, from Pyle's illustrated classics to the classic film Excalibur. And not simply from media, I've enjoyed these tales from a historic perspective as well, wondered at the legends, and dreamed of someday seeing them come true. There will never be too many Arthur stories out there, or too many films using his mystique as a foundation, I for one simply can't get enough. The Kid Who Would Be King is a unique take on the old idea of seeing the king come again, but in the vein of a modern child...Read the entire review

One of my favorite movies of the last 20 years is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which came out when I was 20 and stunned me with its dramatic perfection and utter awesomeness. I didn't know then how much it owed to The Bounty, a film that came out a year after I was born and which I had never seen, despite its amazing cast and my fascination with British history. Peter Weir's swashbuckling tale is an action-packed version of this classic nautical adventure, the two sharing many similarities, and credit should be given where credit is due; obviously Master and Commander owes much to The Bounty ...Read the entire review

I was surprised when, at the end of Split (which you need to see before watching Glass, so please don't read on if you haven't; I won't spoil Glass but Split is fair game), it was revealed that the story was connected to Unbreakable and that Shyamalan was creating a world, a universe, not just giving us another taste of his predictable unpredictability. I didn't see that coming, and although I always try not to guess his twists, because where's the fun in that, this reveal caught me more off guard than any before, since I simply wasn't looking in that direction at all. Split was a return for th...Read the entire review

A foreign language candidate out of Norway came to America this summer and was mostly missed by audiences, including myself. The critics that saw the film sung its praises, but otherwise it slid under the radar and went under-seen, which needs to be remedied. I came across it by accident, knowing nothing about Iram Haq's strong debut five years previous, I Am Yours. The Pakistani-Norwegian director tells emotional stories about women living where two cultures clash, and attempting to steer their way through expression and emotion while this battle rages on. What Will People Say is a coming-of-age tale from this perspective, a look at how the m...Read the entire review

I feel like I found him early, at least for an American, and I've watched Vincent Cassel shine ever since. He's one of the best professionals working today, be it in France or in Hollywood, and I would hope that, by now, most audiences know his name, or at least know when they see his face that they're about to see something very special. The Messenger, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Irreversible, Sheitan, Eastern Promises, Black Swan, A Dangerous Method, Trance, Beauty and the Beast, Partisan, Child 44, Tale of Tales, My King, The Little Prince, It's Only the End of the World, Jason Bourne; what can this actor not do. Now he takes on an artist at a ve...Read the entire review

I'll always be thankful to Travis Knight and Laika for giving us Kubo and the Two Strings; it was one of the better movies of 2016 and another stunning animated film from one of my favorite studios. But that's where the problem with Bumblebee arises as well; Knight is an animator, a hell of a good lead animator, but Kubo was his first attempt at directing, and Bumblebee was his first attempt at directing humans. That's not something you learn over night, and an eye for talent isn't something you necessarily learn at all, I think you might have to be born with it. Knight brings a good eye for action and sequenc...Read the entire review

If I've said it once I've said it ...probably twice; Kristen Stewart is an incredible actress who is ill-treated partly because of the crappy vehicle she decided to hitch a ride in to jump start her career and party because of the demeanor she exhibits that comes across to us as flippant and/or annoyed. She found a way to become a star, now that she is one she doesn't feel like she owes us anything, and somehow we're mad about that, but that just seems like pure lunacy to me. Stewart is a talented actor, she picks the roles she wants to pick, she talks to the media when she chooses, and nothing else is our business, at least t...Read the entire review

Keira Knightley simply doesn't age; she's been the period piece It Girl for years now, since Pride & Prejudice perhaps, and that's more than thirteen years ago. Some other actresses have popped up as her replacement (Mia Wasikowska), but since she doesn't seem to get any older, why try to fix what isn't broken? She's now approaching her mid-30s, but can still steal these young debutant roles, and since there's absolutely no one who's quite on her level, I think we could see her continue this game for another thirteen years, why not, she's lasted this young. She's talented, remarkable, beautiful, and has succeeded in whatever has been th...Read the entire review

For boasting a star-studded cast and having been built upon a classic, albeit one of the cult variety, Basic Instinct 2 is shockingly bad. I say that knowing that most will not be shocked by that news, because they saw the quality of this film coming a mile away, but I can't let it slide upon its crappy sequel status and its lack of expectation. Based on how well Basic Instinct works, and I should tell you that I think it works very well, its successor should have been better, simply better, regardless of how little we thought of its chances. But this awful attempt at a steamy thriller is an embarrassment and nothing...Read the entire review

13-year-old Millennials have Eighth Grade, 17-year-old Xennials have Lady Bird, and now teenage Gen-Xers have Mid90s, a look at the skate life of young Los Angelinos as the 1900s ended without life becoming the dreamscape that was promised. Angst and disappointment were hallmarks of growing up in this decade, as were drugs and lost opportunities, and it's all captured here on the streets of LA, where every day is a struggle and all you've really got is your board. I might have been in a nerd ...Read the entire review

Mary Poppins is the quintessential Disney musical, the classic of classics that showed us what entertainment could be. The fact that Mary Poppins Returns is a throwback to that style has thrown critics for a loop, as they scramble to justify their desire to enjoy a film they feel they should and the confusion brought on by a modern movie attempting an old school format. This isn't a Beauty and the Beast remake, this isn't a look from another angle like Read the entire review

People who decry the failure of DC forget that Marvel has had its bumps as well, and took some time to get in the proverbial groove. I'm not defending the majority of what DC has given us to this point, far from it, but Wonder Woman was a legitimate success and Aquaman looks to be a relative win as well, so perhaps this universe has found its place in the stars. Who would have thought that Wonder Woman and Aquaman would be the figures to save the franchise that Superman and Batman put in jeopardy, but here we are, and the future could still be bright. That's the state of the DC union, but that's not exactly my opinion. While I did thor...Read the entire review

You wouldn't expect a potential contender for a Best Foreign Film nomination at the Academy Awards to be directed by the guy who brought us One Night at McCool's, Agent Cody Banks, Pink Panther 2, The Karate Kid, and Mortal Instruments, but here we are. Harald Zwart returns to his Norwegian roots with a movie to leave all his other crappy attempts at cinema in the dust, a true story to make us forget the sins he committed in Hollywood and assuredly vows never to repeat as long as we all shall live, amen. I joke, but it's shocking the drastic change between this director's previous style and this current offering, a film that has '...Read the entire review

One of the most undervalued Disney movies is Wreck-It Ralph, and although it automatically sounds whiny to label something that way, it can also be perfectly true. We can't call it underrated, because it's extremely well-rated, well-respected, and was even nominated for an Oscar. But when discussing the best of Disney, we tend to either lean toward the standard princess musicals or the great Pixar classics, while Wreck-It Ralph gets lost somewhere in the middle. It's simply too original, with the only real comparison being Toy Story; games coming to life whe...Read the entire review

I have to be careful, because sometimes I simply enjoy a movie because I'm one of the few who has taken the opportunity to try it out, and sometimes that experience is worth more than the film itself. An indie flick comes along, it goes entirely under the radar, it's not a hidden gem by any means, but just watching gives those few in the audience a feeling of personal attention, and you find yourself rooting for a story and its character with a voracity that perhaps it doesn't deserve. This film is one that's not strong enough to warrant the praise on its own, it needs its status to drum up support. And although I am all for giving support to independ...Read the entire review