The Forgaughtens: The Black Dahlia (2006)
The Black Dahlia is what happens when a master director’s stunning vision gets reigned in or knocked off course by a screenplay that demands too much from him. There are moving images that Brian De Palma and his team conceived of and constructed throughout this film that literally took my breath away – three friends […]
True Romance Review
RATING: (4 STARS) True Romance is a fever dream. Who knew that combining the sensibilities of Quentin Tarantino the writer with those of Tony Scott the director would result in something that most closely resembles a 70s Terrence Malick movie? And what if that movie had one of the strongest, deepest casts of any movie […]
The Last Boy Scout Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) It’s easy enough to look at The Last Boy Scout and assume it’s a close relative of 48 Hrs. or Lethal Weapon. They’re all action comedies to one extent or another. They feature an interracial pair with contrasting and clashing styles investigating a crime or larger criminal conspiracy. And in the case […]
The Forgaughtens: Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Slevin. SLEVIN! If I asked you to tell me what a movie called Lucky Number Slevin was about, and you said, “It’s probably about a terrible case of mistaken identity that gets a man in a towel caught between two brutal crime lords,” well you’d be right, but I’m pretty sure you’d have cheated. Anyway, […]
The Forgaughtens: The Recruit (2003)
Sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, someone in Hollywood thought they cracked the code on Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan, and late Al Pacino. The result of that (presumably coke-fueled) idea is The Recruit – a truly bonkers movie that helped contribute to the months of January and February becoming the ripest period for disposable […]
Days of Thunder Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The rap against Days of Thunder (or case for it, depending on your speed) over the last 30 years has been that it’s nothing more than a remake of Top Gun with race cars. In Roger Ebert’s review of the film, he outlined all the ways this film fits squarely into then […]
Revenge Review
RATING: (1.5 STARS) For a film as pulpy and hard-edged as Revenge, it’s hard to believe how lifeless the final product feels. This is the first Tony Scott movie that doesn’t feel like a Tony Scott movie on paper, which I was quite excited about, but it could have used an infusion of the energy […]
Beverly Hills Cop III Review
RATING: (1 STARS) Beverly Hills Cop III fucking sucks. After seven years away from Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy put the Detroit Lions jacket back on in an extremely half-baked sequel to the great Beverly Hills Cop II, but it’s pretty clear early on that he didn’t really want to. Apparently a third Beverly Hills Cop […]
Beverly Hills Cop II Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) On the heels of Top Gun, the highest grossing movie of its year, it seems like an odd choice to step in and direct the sequel to an even higher grossing film from a few years ago, like Beverly Hills Cop. Even stranger, perhaps, is that this is a sequel to a […]
Beverly Hills Cop Review
RATING: (4 STARS) I’m not sure there’s ever been a clearer case a film being carried by the charisma of its star than Beverly Hills Cop. This is Eddie Murphy’s film from beginning to end – something that sort of came about by accident. Originally conceived of and written as a dark and gritty Sylvester […]
Top Gun Review
RATING: (3 STARS) I hardly remember it, but I actually watched and reviewed Top Gun almost ten years ago, when this website was in its infancy. After re-reading those 600+ scathing words, I realized I was both very right and very wrong. John at 21 thought Top Gun was cheesy and rote, and he hated […]
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the fifth Star Wars film in as many years, arrived in theaters before Christmas more with a sense of exhausted obligation than breathless anticipation. It wasn’t just that we’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time in this world lately. The discourse around these films has […]
The Hateful Eight Review
RATING: (4 STARS) There was some blood spilled at a Wyoming haberdashery some time after the Civil War. Well, a fictional Wyoming haberdashery, but still … boy, there was some blood. It’s the time and place of Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, the very appropriately titled The Hateful Eight. The blood is nothing new in a […]
Searching Review
RATING: (3 STARS) There are a thousand Searching‘s in the history of both film and TNT, but none quite look and feel like the one made by director Aneesh Chaganty and starring John Cho. Some have said it’s the first film to really get the digital age. I don’t think that’s quite true. (If it […]
Bohemian Rhapsody Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) Few bands in rock history are larger than life in the same way as Queen. Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon incorporated elements of electronica, heavy metal, British pop, and opera into their catalog of songs, which is still play in stadiums, arenas, and karaoke bars and all over […]
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) The latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen was originally meant to be an anthology series for Netflix, but somewhere between its conception and the Venice Film Festival this year, it became a two-hour, six-part anthology film. On the surface, this treatment will turn some viewers off, and “disjointed” and “uneven” will […]
