Universal’s marketing department has been working overtime to sell the new romantic comedy Last Christmas as some sort of spiritual cousin to what is now apparently considered a modern-day holiday classic: Love, Actually. Remember Emma Thompson, who appeared in just one of that film’s myriad storylines? Well, she co-wrote this! And if you’re saying ‘so what? She had nothing to do with the creation of Love, Actually, that it was Richard Curtis’ — well, Last Christmas is set in London, too,…
In the realm of unnecessary sequels, Stephen King’s follow-up novel to his beloved The Shining would seem to be running neck and neck for first place along with the movie adaptation of same. But Doctor Sleep comes for us all anyway, and believe it or…
Sarah Connor ostensibly changed the future and defeated Skynet in 1991, averting the cataclysm that would have been Judgment Day. But the Terminators and the Terminator movies never seem to stop, dragging these characters again and again into increasingly convoluted time-whiplash whirlpools, the same…
OK, so things don’t really vanish anymore: even the most limited film release will (most likely, eventually) find its way onto some streaming service or into some DVD bargain bin assuming that those still exist by the time this sentence finishes. In other words, while the title of In Review…
Scott Aukerman’s Between Two Ferns: The Movie barely qualifies as a movie, in much the same way that Between Two Ferns barely qualifies as a TV show. The long running Funny or Die sketch featuring Zach Galifianakis as a hilariously inept local access celebrity…
Our third and final dispatch from the 2019 New York Film Festival is offers a smaller pool of takes but checks off one of the year’s biggest players — Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems. Also featured here are thoughts on Olivier Assayas’s latest,…
Our third and final dispatch from the 2019 BFI London Film Festival is offers thoughts on one of the upcoming awards season’s biggest players — Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — as well as a litany of small, international fare, including:…
It’s incredibly difficult for a television show to stick the landing. Long running programs tend to become different things for different viewers, particularly shows that have fully lodged themselves into pop culture. For every controversial ending (I’m thinking Seinfeld, Lost, and especially The Sopranos) there are…
After 25 years of failed visual effects testing and bouncing from filmmaker to filmmaker, Gemini Man has finally made it to screens. That time in development purgatory would normally suggest a final product that’s merely a beleaguered mess, but under the purview of Ang…
Our second dispatch from the 2019 BFI London Film Festival is heavy on likely awards season contenders — Jojo Rabbit, Ford v Ferrari, and The Two Popes — while also offering takes on a trio of international festival regulars this year: Hlynur Pálmason’s A White, White Day, Helina…
