If you love your action flicks stuffed full of nonsense exposition and explanation, Infinite is the film for you. You know you’re in trouble when a high-concept sci-fi or fantasy action flick opens with a voiceover that explains the premise and defines a bunch…
A Quiet Place Part II succeeds in much the same way as the original — as a sturdy, thoughtful, and understated exercise in genre. Box-office success on a tiny budget basically guaranteed that 2018’s compact, gripping little monster movie one-off A Quiet Place would get…
Georgetown isn’t the worst actor-turned-director debut feature, but it is a drab, superficial affair with little to distinguish it. Since coming to the attention of American audiences in his Oscar-winning turn as Colonel Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Christoph Waltz hasn’t wanted for…
Sponge on the Run could have been a nostalgic charmer, but is instead little more than a bit of cheap brand marketing. After 22 years, Spongebob Squarepants is only now receiving a spin-off in Kamp Koral, a series exploring Mr. Squarepants’ childhood adventures at summer…
A whopping 13 features deep into their cinematic partnership, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were reaching a new apex of open acrimony in their relationship when they worked under the direction of Frank Tashlin on 1955’s Artists and Models, their penultimate film as a…
Dreamland is a beautiful, lite-Malickian effort than smartly boasts both gorgeous, mythopoeic expositions and thrilling storytelling. Set during the Great Depression and amidst the dusty storms of small-town Texas, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s sophomore effort Dreamland opens with intoxicating narration courtesy of the half-sister of the film’s…
Spontaneous tries to be too many things at once, and ultimately doesn’t scratch the surface of any of them. Spontaneous is a lot of things: sci-fi, horror, romance, tragedy, coming-of-age. The one thing it fails to be, however, is compelling; writer-director Brian Duffield is…
In their 2015 documentary, De Palma, Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow let iconoclastic writer/director Brian De Palma speak about each of his films, chronologically, from early student films to 2013’s Passion. A fascinating (if minor) document, De Palma serves one important function: it locates…
“I’m not in the mood to get probed today.” “You think you’re worried? I’m not even wearing pants!” And so goes the humor of Sonic the Hedgehog, 2020’s adaptation of the classic ‘90s SEGA video game. That conversation takes place between our furry hero…
Gordon Parks’s 1971 Shaft is now almost 50 years old. The film didn’t begin the blaxploitation subgenre, but it was certainly its most popular example up until that time — and both the title character and the actor who played him, Richard Roundtree, quickly…
